Hmm, Top Blogs. That’s darn good incentive to keep writing.
After graduating from residency, I took a month off. It was the Holidays, I had finally been liberated from a malignant work situation, I had the chance to be my own man again, to make my own decisions. I thought I could waltz straight out of residency and into any job I wanted. After all, I was a doctor. Young, certainly. Inexperienced, perhaps a tad. But a highly educated and motivated physician. People are always sick, how hard could it be?
Pretty Damn Difficult.
My interests lie in clinical academic medicine. I want to practice, but I also want to teach. Having knowledge is great, but spreading it is infinitely more fulfilling. A fellowship position would have granted me that, but thats a long story most of my old readers already know about and I wont go into it here. So the next best bet was to continue on as a hospitalist, ideally in a teaching hospital.
I tried applying to several, but outside of my training facility, where I will not return, I’m still too young to obtain any kind of academic position. I dont yet have the experience and the breadth of knowledge, I would simply be a glorified resident. Not that I realized it at the time.
No instead it took almost 3 months of unemployment. 3 months of turning down any jobs not in Los Angeles or Orange County. 3 months of thinking I was too good to settle for living in Bakersfield, Palm Springs, Riverside. Thinking that I would start at my dream job, top of my field.
It wasnt a rude awakening but a gradual realization that though I may have graduated, nobody cared or knew the difference. It’s not what you know, it’s what you do. So, I started looking further afield. I still ignored permanent positions in places I couldnt see myself living, but now because I was looking for somewhere to continue to develop my skills while living.
With loans rapidly coming due, and no source of income, I began searching for alternative methods of employment that would pay the bills, develop my skills, and give clinical thrills.
And so I learned about the world of Locum Tenens (latin e.g. to hold the place of) aka substitue/temporary doctoring.
Doctors leave to have babies, to go on vacation, to move on to other jobs all the time, but patients need to be seen. This leaves clinics and hospitals understaffed, sometimes for only a few days, sometimes for months. While the hospital looks for a replacement, they will occasionally call into a doctor temp agency for someone to help out while they search. Its a good source of short term employment, and all the travel costs including room, board, and airfare are defrayed by the company. Essentially it’s a work vacation. travel the world, treat the sick, and get paid to do it. You just have to keep getting licensed everywhere which takes 6-8 weeks per new facility.
So while I continued to search for my dream job, I accepted my first locums position. A Geriatric Clinic in East Los Angeles where none of the patients spoke any english. It was time to see just how fluent I was, in spanish and medicine, as I began my first real job as an attending physician…
-Dr J
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