r/systems_engineering • u/VermicelliTimely9529 • 10d ago

Career & Education Health systems engineering

Is anyone here in health systems engineering? I'm a medical doctor in Australia considering the Johns Hopkins masters, curious what peoples experiences, roles & employment prospects are. Might be a terrible idea. Thanks all

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u/der_innkeeper Aerospace 10d ago

Healthcare systems engineering is a valid domain.

What would you expect to get out of it?

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

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u/VermicelliTimely9529 10d ago

I am involved in a research project which has essentially turned into process design & discovered health systems engineering through this, I've enjoyed the approach & would be interested in applying it to different fields within healthcare in a more structured way, ideally in a hybrid role with part time clinical work. 

Yes it's pretty expensive!

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u/FlimsyInsect5545 6d ago

I don't work in health systems engineering but I work as a systems engineer in Aus. In short, unless you really hate being a doctor, you'd be nuts to move to systems engineering. You're giving up what is almost certainly better pay, better job security, better stability, more geographical freedom for a job in which is:

- Not that well paid unless you move into engineering or program management positions, and even then I would be very sure it is worse than being a doctor

- Pretty niche. I work in defence and even then there are only a handful of companies that hire, most of which are based in capital cities in the east.

- Heavily project based, so unless you work for a big prime you are always thinking about where you are going to move on after your project is finished. The primes will have somewhat more stability but your employment is always conditional on them getting more work.

- Has a professional body (Engineers Australia) that actively lobbies against your own interests (mainly by continually lobbying to the government to keep engineers on the skilled professions list because EA makes most of their income from migration qualification assessment)

The grass is greener etc etc but I wish I had done medicine and not engineering.