The Complete Guide To Becoming An Occupational Medical Physician

Although there is strong evidence that employment has a positive impact on health and wellbeing, there are adverse effects of work that can coexist. Each year in Great Britain, over a million workers are injured or made ill by their work. Despite its importance, occupational medicine is poorly represented as a specialty in the undergraduate curricula and relatively few medical trainees seek out the speciality for their career. This guide will reveal the opportunities available when you elect to follow a career in occupational medicine and the key milestones towards becoming a consultant occupational medical physician.

The Role Of An Occupational Medical Physician

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Committee on Occupational Health describe the aims of occupational health as: ‘the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations.’ The role of an occupational physician is much more than Hep B checks and health questionnaires. In fact, compared to most traditional hospital specialities, it is extremely diverse.

As well as maintaining clinical contact with patients through the assessment of work-related health issues and helping patients return to work after illness, this specialty requires physicians to have a detailed understanding of employment and anti-discrimination laws and ethics. The profession opens gateways to management positions and chief advisory roles, with consultants having a large-scale positive health impact on patients with regards to understanding health risks and promoting compliance with relevant environmental and health and safety legislation.

Economic Impact and Workplace Statistics

Occupational health has a strong holding in business and government agendas, with awareness of this continually increasing. Moving forward, occupational health is likely to become a more established part of government policy in order to improve economic efficiency. The following data highlights the scale of occupational health challenges:

Employment Opportunities and Work-Life Balance

Unique to a career in occupational medicine, a larger proportion of job posts are outside the NHS. Organisations such as the Emergency services, the Armed Forces, transport organisations such as Transport for London, and other independent providers of occupational health all directly employ occupational medical physicians. The growing demand for occupational physicians across the UK means that the specialty may need to be fully integrated with the NHS in order to support the number needed to go into training.

The life of an occupational medical physician will vary greatly depending on their role and their place of work. A working week can include clinical work such as assessing individuals for capability, eligibility for ill-health retirement as well as workplace visits and assessments surrounding health risk. Although occupational medicine consultants can venture in different directions, working hours are limited to 48 hours per week and on-call and weekend work is minimal. Working normal office hours means that the career allows scope for great work-life balance.

Special Interest Areas

Depending on your place of work there are opportunities to subspecialise, which include:

• Travel Medicine
• Disability Assessment Medicine
• Aviation Medicine
• Occupational Dermatology
• Occupational Respiratory Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Radiation Medicine
• Diving Medicine

The Route To Becoming An Occupational Medical Physician

The training pathway to becoming an occupational medicine consultant also differs compared to most conventional medical career paths. Key milestones include:

1. Complete medical school and foundation training - As with all training routes to becoming a consultant physician, a medical degree must be obtained, and clinical foundation years completed.
2. Core training (2/3 years) - After foundation training, medical trainees apply for core training, usually in line with the specialty training they wish to pursue at a later date.