I didnt understand it that day . At that instance I was getting offered a very high pay compared to my friend in another specialty . He was visibly upset after the interview . And especially considering that he has spent so many sleepless nights being in direct patient care of clinical medicine while i was doing radiodiagnosis, a relatively less demanding specialty in many ways on personal time and flexible . Not that something was awesome about either of specialties but it was unfair .Same experience . Years later i understood as in anything demand supply equation is one of the key drivers of salaries .
If there are n number of job slots and there are 10 times n highly qualified candidates its natural that salaries will drop . Why i reiterate this here is because career choice is always a complex decision . And depending on the person the weightage given for work-life balance , salaries , job satisfaction etc varies between individuals . Though a salary should never be the only factor in guiding career choice its always prudent to understand the external factors responsible for job peculiarities including salaries .
As part of one of my modules i train -healthcare interviews training i was surprised to learn about the gross discrepancies in salaries at entry level in various scenarios . Of course like the case of nurses in india there are numerous factors which affect entry level salaries . This is especially an issue because recently only many of these "issues " has been taken up . The nurses agitation few years back in kerala due to the abysmally low salaries was all over media and brought to public attention of the problems of the ladies with the lamps ( male nurses too equally affected ) .
Biomedical engineering is one of the fastest growing subspecialties abroad . Actually even logically its so exciting considering it encompasses biology as well as engineering . Also its a humanitarian engineering because it directly impacts us though we dont think about them when we get a scan or lab test done .These equipment are designed , manufactured and maintained by biomedical engineers . But the entry level salaries of biomedical engineers in hospitals are not good. Of course it cannot be just explained by demand supply equation .
This is all the more important because in a head to head comparison with software engineers , biomedical engineers often get then raw deal to put it bluntly . Its not the case with large multinational companies in healthcare sector but there the demand supply becomes important . The entry level "prime " jobs are lesser in biomedical engineering compared to software which often does bulk recruiting . Of course in software too compared to the gold rush of the 90s demand has reduced still demand supply in prime jobs are favorable .
Does this mean biomedicals should run for a software job , Is it a greener pasture . ? The answer depends . It all depends on many factors . Always think of short , medium and long term and all possible avenues in india as well as abroad and make realistic decisions . Future of any specialty we cannot predict and making informed decisions is the key . Following the passion, your personality , salaries , job growth , all are important and lot of online resources as well as networking helps in finetuning your career choices over the years .
Again i understand as a fresher salaries mean a lot and india has still to reach the level where salaries are fair across job scenarios . How else can we explain a fresh engineer getting paid less than a manual labourer ( with due respects to manual labour )
As a biomedical engineer if you are not networked in any of the linkedin, google or facebook groups do it now . I dont know whether my comments are useful as i am no career counsellor but just put in some random thoughts seeing people around and some reading . Your comments welcome .
