Why I ditched my career as a brain surgeon in Brisbane earning six figures a year to stack shelves at 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 any quality time with friends and family, MS Xu eventually left her medical career 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.

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 her role as an Amazon Casual Warehouse Associate, the 31-year-old found herself preparing customer orders, loading boxes onto trucks and stacking shelves.

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

In the years since, Ms. Xu has managed to climb the ladder at Amazon and is now a full-time operations shift manager.

“I had never worked in anything like this before, but I would often order things from 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 an Amazon Warehouse Associate is approximately $32, with MS XU working four to five shifts per week when she first started.

“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 in Brisbane and said she can financially support herself in 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 part of the reason I ultimately stayed because the work culture 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 really 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.

It comes amid a massive hiring spree for Amazon, with 600 seasonal positions up for grabs ahead of the Christmas rush.

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