injury or disease. Physicians examine patients, obtain medical histories, and order, perform, and interpret diagnostic tests. They counsel patients on diet, hygiene, and preventive health care.

What do I have to do to get this job?

Educational qualification: MBBS DEGREE from a reputed university.

Work experience: Internship at college.

Work environment: Many physicians work long, irregular hours. About one-third of all full-time physicians worked 60 hours or more a week in 1996. They must travel frequently between office and hospital to care for their patients. Increasingly, physicians practice in groups or health care organizations that provide back-up coverage and allow for more time off. These physicians work as part of a team that coordinates care for a population of patients; they are less independent than solo practitioners of the past. Physicians who are on-call deal with many patients' concerns over the phone, and may make emergency visits to hospitals.

How much will I be paid when I start?

A basic pay of 5000/-

What is the future with this job?

Employment of physicians will grow faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2006 due to continued expansion of the health care industries. The growing and aging population will drive overall growth in the number of physicians. In addition, new technologies permit more intensive care: Physicians can do more tests, perform more procedures, and treat conditions previously regarded as untreatable. Job prospects will be best for primary care physicians such as general and family practitioners, general pediatricians, and general internists; and for geriatric and preventive care specialists.

Because of efforts to control health care costs and increased reliance on utilization guidelines that often limit the use of specialty services, a lower percentage of specialists will be in demand. At the same time, the number of specialists continues to grow. Competition for jobs among specialists will be especially keen in large urban and suburban areas, and for those who work directly for hospitals, such as anesthesiologists and radiologists.

A number of prestigious organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine and the Pew Health Professions Commission, have found a current oversupply of physicians. They suggest that measures should be taken to reduce the number being trained through such means as a reduction in the number of residency slots. If successful, a reduction in the number of new physicians entering the workforce will help to alleviate the effects of any physician oversupply.

A physician oversupply may not substantially limit the ability of physicians to find employment. However, it could result in physicians working fewer hours, having lower earnings, and having to practice in underserved areas. Opportunities should be good in some rural and low-income areas, because some physicians find these areas unattractive due to lower earnings potential, isolation from medical colleagues, or other reasons. It is also possible that physicians trained in specialties will provide primary care services as well as specialty care.

Unlike their predecessors, newly trained physicians face radically different choices of where and how to practice. New physicians are much less likely to enter solo practice and more likely to take salaried jobs in group medical practices, clinics, and health care networks.

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