Career progression is not betrayal

 Doctors leave the public healthcare system mostly because their sacrifices are not appreciated, yet they are accused of prioritising money over service.

From Abirami Shavani

There is a tendency to scrutinise doctors who leave the public healthcare system for better opportunities elsewhere, as though pursuing career advancement is somehow an act of betrayal.

Frankly, this assumption is unfair and deeply misplaced.

Why should anyone be condemned for accepting a better offer after years of hard work, training, and sacrifice?

In every other profession, career progression is celebrated. People are congratulated for climbing the ladder, expanding their experience, and improving their quality of life.

Yet when doctors do the same, they are labelled as selfish, disloyal, or lacking patriotism.

Consider a simple analogy. A finance graduate starts work as a financial analyst, gains experience, earns additional qualifications, and eventually becomes a senior advisor.

Another company then offers him better pay and benefits. If he chooses to accept the offer, nobody questions his morals. Nobody accuses him of abandoning society. It is seen for what it is: professional growth.

Now apply that same logic to medicine.

A doctor spends years in government hospitals completing housemanship and medical officer training before entering specialist training.

Many continue even further into subspecialty fellowships, taking on increasingly complex cases and heavier responsibilities. The higher the expertise, the greater the burden.

Yet despite the enormous responsibility placed on these doctors, many continue to work under exhausting and unpredictable conditions.

Overtime often goes uncompensated. Weekends disappear into ward rounds and emergency calls. Phone consultations continue long after office hours.

Family life repeatedly takes second place because patient care always comes first.

Then one day, that same consultant receives an offer elsewhere with perhaps better pay, more reasonable working conditions, improved resources, or simply a chance to live a more balanced life while still practising medicine.

Would it really be fair to call that doctor a traitor?

Doctors who leave the public system are not abandoning healthcare. They are still treating patients, performing surgeries, answering emergencies, and dedicating their lives to medicine.

The difference is that they have chosen an environment that values their expertise more appropriately.

In any functioning organisation, when valuable employees begin leaving, leadership reflects why retention is failing.

Efforts are made to improve working conditions, compensation, and morale. Instead, what many doctors receive are lectures about patriotism and accusations that they are prioritising money over service.

This narrative is not only insulting, but also dangerous.

Healthcare workers are already stretched thin, trying to keep an overburdened system functioning. Guilt-tripping them for seeking sustainability does not solve the problem.

It merely diverts attention from the real issue: a system that has relied too heavily on sacrifice while offering too little in return.

Doctors are empathetic people. That empathy is precisely why many continue showing up despite burnout, exhaustion, and emotional strain.

But empathy should never be mistaken for an obligation to tolerate dysfunction indefinitely.

This is not a story about greedy doctors leaving. It is a warning sign that something within the system is failing.

Instead of criticising those who go for better opportunities, policymakers should ask a far more important question: why are so many no longer willing to stay?

Because no healthcare system can survive forever by depending solely on sacrifice to keep it alive. - FMT

Dr Abirami Shavani is an ophthalmologist at a private medical centre in Ipoh.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.