This doctor exchanged his place in a group practice to become the assistant medical development director for a pharmaceutical manufacturer in New Jersey. An increasing number of former general practitioners are making a place for themselves in the world of corporate medicine. The physicians who have become affiliated with corporations are fatigued by the trials of private practice, the prevalence of governmental and insurance-related meddling in medical matters, the political atmosphere in academia and the necessity of drumming up research money. There is even a city that wants to hire these doctors in hopes of improving employee health and safety. Most of these doctors still work in jobs connected to medicine, either in drug research or occupational health, but some have left medicine entirely for the business world.
The compensation offered by the municipality can rival that of private practice. Benefits of these new corporate positions include regular hours with vacation time, teaching and study opportunities, company paid malpractice insurance and benefit packages that can equal the practitioner's salary.
Despite the fact that estimates put the number of doctors working as corporate physicians in the thousands, these numbers still only account for about 2 percent of the doctors in the U.S. In addition to these, thousands more occupational medicine doctors are in charge of departments that are responsible for providing employee health benefits and product safety. There are over 10,000 physicians filling these roles on a part-time basis. Areas that employ these corporate physicians include insurance companies as medical underwriters, drug manufacturers, insurance claims and product testing specialists.
The chief medical director's career track for a large insurance agency is not rare amongst corporate physicians. One doctor decided to take on a part time role working for a chain restaurant, simply because he wanted to make a little bit of extra money. What he didn't realize is how hard he would work during this part time job, performing exams on food handlers at a rate of up to 60 patients in an hour! He reluctantly gave up his medical practice when he accepted the position of medical director for two movie studios. There were even better chances for preventative medicine and an endless amount of opportunities to take up since there was no payment required from the patient.
At one time, a company doctor was looked down upon as someone who wasn't able to maintain a private practice. They were not considered "real" doctors, but just someone who handed out aspirin and band-aids. The fields of product safety and new employment laws have created avenues by which the doctor can attain a new respectability and effectiveness. A major New York telecommunications company's medical director says that it is rather refreshing to be actually "practicing" medicine again.
Doctors at earlier stages of their careers are able to be as successful or even more so than they might be otherwise. Those who have been working in medicine longer are typically willing to forgo greater income levels, as they are financially able to do so. It is certainly true that some corporate doctors believe that when it comes to lifetime income standard of living, they are the ones coming out way ahead. Occupational medicine, as these corporate positions were once called, was at one time considered undesirable and for doctors who were not able to "make it in the real world". This perception has undergone a radical transformation in recent years.
Doctors who left their stethoscopes behind when they entered the corporate world are the ones who have made the most money. One, 78 year old medical school graduate retired a multimillionaire who never practiced traditional medicine at all during his career. He earned his first million by revamping his father's pharmaceutical company while he was still in medical school. Upon graduation, this doctor purchased a surplus army field hospital and administered to the Ural Mountain region of the former Soviet Union where the populace was afflicted by famine. While there, he learned that food rather than drugs were most desperately needed, and worked to import grain which led to the establishment of a network that furthered his business enterprises in the future.
