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Going Freelance in Your Third Year as a Doctor Without Becoming a Board-Certified Specialist: Is It a Real Option?

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At a fork in the road, a chick doctor compares a wide, well-paved main road with a narrow path overgrown with grass and flowers, wondering which way to go

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Contents
  1. Conclusion
  2. You Can Set Your Own Schedule
  3. You Won't Struggle for Money or Work
  4. You Face Strong Criticism from Those Around You
  5. The Hospitals You Can Work at Are Limited
  6. If You Have No Goal, Become a Board-Certified Specialist

"What do you think about skipping board certification and going freelance from your third year as a doctor?" This was something people around me often talked about when I was a junior resident, during the two-year initial residency.

Some doctors said that becoming a board-certified specialist was a given, while others said it was up to each person. But all of them were on the route of becoming a board-certified specialist after junior residency. No one around me had chosen to go freelance from their third year.

I also received a range of opinions from senior doctors. Some were quite harsh, while others encouraged me.

In the end, I didn't enter a specialty residency program, and I worked freelance for a little over a year.

In this article, I'll write about what I learned during that year and a bit.

Conclusion

This isn't a path I can recommend to everyone. My view is that if you don't have a particular goal, you're better off becoming a board-certified specialist.

I'll compare the good sides with the hard sides I felt after actually trying it.

You Can Set Your Own Schedule

Under a parasol on an uncrowded weekday beach, a chick doctor relaxes with a medical textbook open, a suitcase and a small bag of gold coins beside it

First, on the good side, there's time. This is often mentioned, so I'll keep it brief.

You can set your entire schedule yourself. You can take time off or work whenever you like. You can even take long breaks.

In front of a large wall calendar, a chick doctor is pinning up picture cards of a suitcase, a pillow, and a stethoscope in order, two weeks each

In my third year, after going freelance, I traveled abroad often. I would travel overseas for two weeks, then rest for two weeks after coming back. For the next two weeks, I would do nothing but overnight on-call side shifts at various hospitals, one after another.

I think this is something you could hardly do as a regular employee. I've written about my travels in other articles.

In Japanese【2026年1月】「ルワンダの奇跡」は本物か？リープフロッグ現象による急激な発展を遂げていると噂のアフリカ・ルワンダ。「10年後にはありきたりな先進国になっているのではないか」と思い首都キガリへ赴きました。結論から言うと、驚くようなテクノロジーの実装は見られず、東南アジアの途上国と同等の印象。片道24時間の移動負荷やマラリア薬を考慮すると、手放しでおすすめはできません。ただし、特有の景色や安全にアフリカの空気を味わえる点には価値があります。本記事では、2026年1月時点での現地の情報をまとめました。
Why I Recommend Traveling in China: The Surprising Comfort of a Surveillance Society, and Reasons to GoDrawing on a month-long trip through 11 cities from Beijing to Zhangjiajie, I cover the sense of safety from all the surveillance cameras, how I got around without speaking the language, actual prices in 2025, how convenient Alipay is, and having my power bank confiscated on a domestic flight.

You Won't Struggle for Money or Work

A chick doctor stamps a small notebook with stamps shaped like small hospitals from around the country, looking pleased at the pages filled with them

When I was a junior resident, some doctors were worried about me taking this path. They told me, "Without a specialty, jobs are already disappearing. You won't be able to make a living in the future."

Honestly, I wondered whether that was really true. From my experience of actually doing it, that's not the case at all.

As a third-year freelancer without a specialty, I worked more than 100 shifts in one year without any problems. When I applied, I was hired without any trouble, and the hourly rates were fine. I think this means there's plenty of work even without a specialty.

Birds of different colors gather around a circle with only one chair left, while a chick doctor stands a little apart, holding an hourglass and tilting its head

That said, there's some truth to the warnings. In some urban areas, there's fierce competition for jobs, and I think it would be hard if you lived in a city and worked only in cities. Easy postings like overnight on-call shifts where you can usually sleep through the night are decreasing, and when I apply for health checkup jobs in prefectural capitals and similar cities, I'm often not hired.

In front of a small hospital in a peaceful countryside, birds of different colors welcome the chick doctor with floating hearts, and the chick doctor waves a wing a little shyly

If you work mainly in rural areas, there's no problem. There's a lot of work in rural areas, and young doctors are very welcome.

My gut feeling is that you could keep this up for 10 or 20 years. If the work does decrease, it will probably be when rural hospitals themselves gradually disappear.

Note that "not struggling" refers to the amount of work. There are limits to the kind of work you can do, which I'll cover in the section on the hard sides.

You Face Strong Criticism from Those Around You

In a bright hospital corridor, owls in white coats with folded arms glance sideways at a chick doctor passing by with an armful of papers

From here on are the hard sides I felt after actually trying this path. First, as expected, you face strong criticism from those around you.

I sometimes received quite harsh opinions as soon as I said I would take this path. After actually taking it, some doctors look at you quite coldly. I also had chances to go to large hospitals, and there too I was told harsh things.

In front of the gate of a large, impressive hospital, a chick doctor looks up from a little distance at a line of birds of different colors going inside

After all that, what would happen if you tried to re-enter a program? My understanding is that it would be difficult at popular hospitals.

On the other hand, I think programs that are short-staffed and not very popular would welcome you without any particular problem.

The Hospitals You Can Work at Are Limited

In front of a large hospital where ambulances with red flashing lights arrive one after another, a chick doctor stops, looks up at the entrance, and shakes its head

The other is that the hospitals you can work at are limited.

At hospitals where ambulances keep coming in, I don't think I could take responsibility myself, so I can't apply in the first place. Even if I did apply, I don't think they would hire me.

As a specialty resident, you have senior doctors and can properly build experience with their support. As a freelancer, you can't do that.

In an empty daytime waiting room, a chick doctor sits alone on a bench, twirling a stethoscope with its fingers and looking up at the clock on the wall

What you can do without a specialty is so-called relatively easy work, such as the following.

  • Overnight on-call shifts where you can usually sleep through the night

  • Walk-in outpatient clinics with relatively few patients

  • Health checkups

There isn't much to do, so it is easy. But honestly, it's boring. As I keep at it, it feels as though my brain is slowly melting.

If You Have No Goal, Become a Board-Certified Specialist

In front of a narrow suspension bridge, a chick doctor gently holds back, with its wing, the birds of different colors trying to follow behind it

To sum up, the good sides are time and money, and the hard sides are the criticism from those around you and the limited hospitals you can work at.

Of these, money is something you can earn later through side shifts. You can make up for it.

On a station platform with the departure bell ringing, a chick doctor pulls a suitcase and hurries to jump onto a train whose doors are about to close

Time, on the other hand, doesn't work that way. There are life events you can only do at a certain stage of life. For me, that was travel.

In short, the question is whether there's something you want to do with the time and money you gain by not entering a program. If you can't answer this question, I think you're better off becoming a board-certified specialist.

This part also involves personal values, so I'll write about why I chose this path and how I think about it now in the next article.

Going Freelance from My Third Year Without Becoming a Board-Certified Specialist: Why I'm Glad I Chose It and What I Think NowThe main reason I went freelance from my third year as a doctor was to travel abroad. Now that I've done the traveling I wanted to do, I'm leaving a way of working I could keep up if it were only about money. Here is why I'm entering a specialty residency program next year.