When I grow up I want to be a... Medical Administrator

Though many of you may be currently tackling the medical school admissions process, it is never too early to start casting an eye towards your future specialty choice. This is not only important to bring some light to the end of an awfully long tunnel, but also for pragmatic considerations as for a vast majority of specialties you need to plan early. Long gone are the days where a recently post-graduate, junior doctor could stick their hand up and enter a training program – in the current environment, there are hundreds of hopefuls every year vying for the 1-10 training spots nation-wide in each specialty.

This article has been written to give you some background on the specialty of a medical administrator – I am predominantly producing this, not because it’s particularly a popular specialty choice, but because there is an awful lot of confusion and ignorance around this specialty. I even recall, in my first year of medical school, when a number of my colleagues were asking about what each specialties were, some of them believed that a career in medical administration meant being a personal assistant to a doctor!

Rather than being responsible for filing the paperwork for a doctor, a medical administrator would be more likely in a position to fire said doctor! Basically, a medical administrator is an individual with a medical degree who works in health departments, hospitals, or medical boards as somewhat of a manager. For example, a medical administrator could work as a Director of Services or CEO at a hospital, or as the Principal Medical Officer in the State health department. They are typically there to make decisions regarding patient movement, service efficiency, and hospital/healthcare policy. Most of their work would centre on their interaction with administration staff, clinical heads of practice areas, and also with other individuals in upper hospital/health management.

Not surprisingly, Medical Administration has been one of the least popular specialties of choice for the newly graduated junior doctor.  However, this is arguably due to the fact that this specialty is firstly completely unknown to most medical students, and it is also often mischaracterised. The dynamic of being a medical administrator is one that is very exciting, highly variable, and you can make decisions that can influence the health of thousands upon thousands of people. It also involves the integration of medical, business, and political knowledge in a really cohesive manner and it can be an extremely rewarding career where you won’t have to be on the wards at 2AM or 3AM.

The path for specialty training for medical administration can be entered in two major ways – the traditional path, where experienced/senior medical professionals re-train with the College of Medical Administrators and go into the specialty program, typically with the goal of positively influencing the healthcare system. This is still the most popular way of entering the medical administrator career. However, with the shifting culture, goals, and lifestyle of the younger generation, it is becoming more regular for young doctors to become a medical administration registrar and enter the career path from an early stage. This would certainly suit those people who have studied in business, economics, or law previously.

The profession is one of high-pressure, high responsibility, but with a host of great rewards and opportunities, whereby you are able to influence the provision of health services in an entire area or hospital. The specialty brings doctors to a career that is not traditionally associated with the ‘raw medicine’ industry of clinical practice, but it is an increasingly important one as health systems struggle around the world and require expert medical input.

Stay tuned for more blogs where we’ll explain a little more about what different specialities entail.

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