Occupational Medicine

Occupational Medicine: focuses on the relationships among the health of workers; the arrangements of work; and the physical, chemical, and social environments of the workplace.

Physicians in occupational medicine have expertise in mechanical stresses, radiation and toxicology, and dealing with work-related disease and injury.

Quick Facts

Competitiveness: Low

Length of training: 3 years

Number of residency programs: 40

Number of residents in training: 160

Number in U.S. currently Board Certified in specialty: 2,446

First year median compensation: $139,000

Mean hours per week in patient care activities: varies with setting

Residency Information

You will complete 1 year in a clinical residency program and then 2 or 3 years in this specialty. The first year of the residency is an academic program leading to the master of public health degree, and then a practicum year of residency in which you will be supervised fulfilling the duties of this specialty.

Why Choose

An overwhelming majority entered this specialty after practicing in another field. Doctors in this field like the aspect that their work doesn't affect just a single patient, rather everyone at the work-site.

You will find a prevailing trend of physicians who state the appeal of prevention, lifestyle factors, and issues related to workers strongly influenced their decision for this specialty.

Typical Schedule

You will work about 8 to 10 hours each day and engage in a variety of activities. If you are involved in patient care your day will center around the company's work schedule. If this is the case you may have on-call schedules but this will be limited to primarily telephone consultations.

Those in an administrative role may not see patients at all. They will spend their time working on several aspects of reports, studying health hazards, interpreting radiographs, preparation of safety data sheets, and conversations with managers and legal advisers.

If You're Interested

You will want to be a good clinical first is the common advice. Sometimes it is good to have worked in private practice before going into this specialty, physicians will acknowledge having familiarity with business at even a remote level beforehand makes the job a lot easier.

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