Why I gave up my career as a brain surgeon in Brisbane, where I earned six figures a year stocking shelves in an Amazon warehouse

A resident brain surgeon who earns a six-figure annual salary talks about why she left the operating room to work in an Amazon warehouse.

Helen Xu, 31, from Brisbane’s south, started working as a surgical assistant at a Queensland hospital in 2018.

But when Covid struck in 2020, Ms Xu worked tirelessly almost every day, with shifts sometimes lasting up to 30 hours.

Because she had no children or elderly relatives at home who were at risk of spreading the disease, Ms Xu said she was among the staff members most often required to work extra shifts.

Exhausted and unable to spend time with friends and family, Ms. Xu gave up her career in medicine in September 2021.

Ms Xu was in dire need of a change and said Amazon came into the picture in a bizarre way as she had always been impressed with the speed at which they delivered her parcels during the lockdown.

She saw an advertisement for staff at the company and by October 2021 she was already stocking shelves at the delivery giant.

“The last few months of working in the hospital I wasn’t sure if I would get enough rest,” she told Daily Mail Australia.

Helen Xu, 31, from Brisbane’s south, started as a surgical resident at a Queensland hospital in 2018. She joined the team at Amazon in September 2021.

She said that due to the exceptional circumstances in her hospital during Covid, she was on call every day.

“There was a lot of pressure on people who didn’t have children or elderly people at home to come,” she said.

‘I also didn’t want to tell my friends and family about any contact I had with sick people. That’s why I didn’t have much of a social life.’

Ms Xu said the work was so demanding that she was called in almost every day, sometimes with only half a day off to rest between shifts.

After starting as a warehouse worker at Amazon, the 31-year-old spent her time preparing customer orders, loading boxes into trucks and stocking shelves.

Ms Xu had never worked at a place like Amazon before, but said her previous job didn’t offer her a social life or even enough time to get proper rest.

Since then, Ms. Xu has managed to advance her career at Amazon and is now a full-time operations shift manager.

“I had never worked in this kind of industry before, but I would regularly order things through Amazon and think, ‘Why are they delivering so much faster than other companies?’” she said.

According to Salary Expert, the base salary for an entry-level surgical assistant is $113,792.

The hourly rate for a warehouse worker at Amazon is about $32. When Ms. Xu started, she worked four to five shifts a week.

“I think if you look at medicine, the pay is on the high side and there will definitely be salary differences between now and then, but if you look at the amount of time I have for myself (now), it works out fine,” she said.

Ms Xu rents a home in Brisbane and says she can support herself financially for her new career path.

She added that the work atmosphere at Amazon was completely different from the stressful environment she experienced in the hospital.

“It’s very different and that’s one of the reasons I stayed: the work atmosphere is super inclusive,” she said.

‘There is no judgement about what your background or experience is. People come from all walks of life, some have a background in law and education, while others have their own businesses.

“It opened my mind to how inclusive the environment is.”

As for her time as a surgical assistant, Ms. Xu said she has no plans to return to the hospital anytime soon.

This comes as Amazon is on a massive hiring spree, with 600 seasonal roles available ahead of the holiday rush.

Applications are open in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Newcastle, Gold Coast, Gosford and Geelong.