[Article] “In which career can you make the biggest contribution?” by Benjamin Todd

One of the most common career paths for people who want to do good is healthcare. So we worked with a doctor, Greg Lewis, to estimate the number of lives saved by a typical clinical doctor in the UK. Greg estimated that the average doctor enables the people they treat to live several hundred years of extra healthy life over the course of their career -- equivalent to saving several lives. This is a lot of impact compared to most jobs, but it's less than many expect (and we think less than many of the careers we recommend most highly).

Narrated by AI.

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Outline:

(01:59) What do we mean by the ‘contribution’ of a career path?

(03:55) How can you get more leverage in your career?

(04:00) Improve governments or other large institutions

(05:36) Mobilise others

(06:57) Spread ideas

(08:06) Help someone else who's making a big contribution

(09:12) Build organisations

(09:47) Further research and technology

(10:58) Donate money

(12:10) A word of caution: leverage, harm and corruption

(14:59) Conclusion

(16:52) Read next

(17:25) Join our newsletter and we’ll mail you a free book

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
September 13th, 2022

Last updated:
March 24th, 2023

Source:
https://80000hours.org/articles/leverage

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.