If you were to be honest with yourself, would you say that doctoring is your passion? If not, it’s time to reconsider your career path.

The medical field is one of the most competitive out there. Not only do you have to be smart and physically fit, but you also have to have a lot of experience under your belt—and even then, it can be hard to find an opening. That’s why it’s so important that you make sure you’re on the right track from the get-go.

Here are some alternative careers for MDs:

Physician Assistant

Physician Assistants (PAs) work closely with doctors in all aspects of medicine, including diagnosing patients and prescribing treatment plans. They perform routine examinations and tests, administer medications, order lab tests and x-rays as needed, assist in surgery or other procedures if needed—and so much more! PAs are trained at accredited schools of medicine or osteopathic medicine; they attend intense training programs that typically last two years after high school graduation before they can apply for certification by their state board of medicine or board of osteopathic medicine. They must pass an exam administered by these boards before they can practice independently as a PA (some states require continuing education courses).

Alternative Careers For Mds

Medical doctors of various specializations are the highest-paying job in many US states, including in Colorado and Maine. Insider took a look at the highest-paying job in each state and DC outside of physicians.

For our analysis, we looked at occupations for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported at least 1,000 employees in the state with the highest average salary in 2021, the most recent year that data is available. There could be occupations in a state with higher averages, but because they have less than 1,000 people working in them, they’re not part of this analysis. The data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program and excludes several professions for medical doctors and dentists. 

To get a sense of what occupations, other than doctors, are well paid across the US, we excluded cardiologists, dermatologists, radiologists, family or emergency medicine physicians, surgeons, dentists, anesthesiologists, general internal medicine physicians, pediatricians, obstetricians and gynecologists, psychiatrists, ophthalmologists, pathologists, orthodontists, neurologists, and all other general physicians.

Chief executives dominate the non-medical occupations; this occupation is the highest-paying job in 23 states as well as Washington DC based on our methodology.

Below we included the 11 different high-paying jobs across the US, apart from doctors, in alphabetical order. We also included their mean annual salary in each state and Washington DC.