Discussed the future of General Practice with my colleagues, one of whom is emigrating to Qatar (they pay for your house, bills and school fees as well as a salary). I've seriously thought about leaving medicine but bugger all idea of what I would do. Raised a further interesting discussion.

Scenario: You're in your early 30s but in your current job and likely to be there till the age of 68. Knowing what you know now, what would you retrain as? What would be your ideal (but realistically achievable) job?

I'd still would have done engineering stupidly long hours and no respect and low pay considering to the level of reponsibility but at least no cheapo suits ?

If I knew that, I'd get on with it.
Honestly, I've very little regrets with my career path, apart from the financial ones.
I can't imagine ever owning a house, for instance, but so far the trip's been a fun one.
Besides, if I knew what to retrain as, I'd get on and do it. There's still at least 25 years of work left in this dog. You get less for murder.

My mind goes blank every time I try to see past my current job.

I'm 38 and still no idea of what I want to be when I grow up

I have a wooly idea of working for the NHS as a PAL and have been working on my French and sign language as a way in, but I'd need to volunteer for a while until a paid job came up, it's lots of travel but I think it would be worthwhile if I can get to a place where I can make it pay. I will already have the qulifications, I just need the experience. When I'm ready to make the leap into volunteering I'll need to leave my current job and find something nearer to home and probably lower paid to give me the free time to actual do some volunteering.

Wasn't a lot of studying invoved to become a Doctor? Surely you had some idea what you wanted to do?

I've been quite happy with my career path although I never wanted to be in IT when I was young. My 5 year plan is to sell up from London, buy a property outright in Suffolk & do some consultansy or contract work if I need money. Maybe run a B&B. I'd also like to keep horses, a donkey, some chickens and dogs and cats

I think you need to think back to why you decided to study medicine in the first place. Was it caring for people? Problem solving? Money?
Once you understand what's really driving you, it'll be easier to chose a new path.

Agreed, what is it about your current work that you enjoy? Also, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

I love my job. That's not the issue. The issue for me is the future of my job. There may come a time when I'm redundant/unemployed (either because the NHS has disintegrated, or taken over by private companies who employ cheap nurses instead of expensive doctors).

Is there a specific area in medicine that you enjoy? Can you develop that area of your career and take a more specialised route away from GP work?

Not without retraining and going back into hospital medicine, which would involve a paycut and many more years of a difficult life as a trainee.

I'm dreading growing up.

In all seriousness, I agree with those who advised you to look into why you chose medicine in the first place.

For what it's worth, I'm 45 and I'm looking to start a five year plan, which will lead to a slight change in my career path, but it should be a good one.

The moral of the story is that you're never too old...

Yeah, not looking forward to being an adult...

I've made big changes a couple of times in my life, but I've stayed in the same line of work. I just changed everything else around me - moved to Bavaria, then moved to North Germany.

I've moved around a lot in my field, I've been a programmer, an analyst, technical consultant, security consultant, database designer, system administrator, business consultant, project manager, help desk, hardware maintenance, software maintenance, testing...

Currently I my job involves: Project manager, programmer, analyst, system administrator, data protection officer, sales, purchasing, project coordinator, translator, chief presentation designer, web site administrator, marketing and then there are the "extra" jobs that my boss lands on me every day, which stop me doing all the above...