Advantages/Disadvantages of working in a VA

[surfdevl02]

Hello-

I am going to graduate in July and am interviewing for an Anesthsiologist position at a VA Hospital. I wanted to get everyones thoughts on working in a VA if you have experience or know friends working there now. From what i understand the pay is WAY below market value but the lifestyle can be good but this is all second hand chatter.

Does anyone have concrete salary knowledge of VA positions? What makes it a good lifestyle position? It is generally a good case mix? I haven't been to a VA since i was a medical student so i'm going into the interview fairly blind about what to expect.

Thanks for any thoughts that you guys might have and good luck on the job trails if you're liking like myself!!

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[doctadre]

which VA are you interviewing at? they are all a little different.

this isn't concrete info, but this is what i've heard re: VA jobs. your starting pay is low. but each year it steadily increases. your starting vacation time is also very low. but you accumulate more and more vacation for each year that you work. the VA also offers a great pension. so basically, it is the type of job that is worth it financially only if you decide to stay there for a LONG time. as far as numbers go, i believe that a fellowship trained guy starts at around 200K. that number could be wrong though.

as for the lifestyle, the good thing about the VA is that it seems to be a very secure job. the government also covers malpractice so the fear of litigation is a lot less. so those are a couple of things that you won't have to stress over as much as in private practice.

there isn't the constant pressure to generate income for the hospital either. so the ORs aren't always booked to the max and many things like room turnovers are done at a more leisurely pace. the VA also celebrates a lot of federal holidays.

 

[211498]

I rotated at a VA in the south. They started at 6AM, usually most of the rooms were done around 1PM, beyond that only one or two rooms were runing and covered by one attending, the others went home. Very light call, many times the passed the call on to attendings from the affiliated university or locums. Quite a few of the attendings seemed to have PP gigs on the side. All in all they seemed VERY happy with their jobs. I don't know how much they made, but they all had European cars, nice houses and their children went to top notch schools/colleges.

 

[RussianJoo]

how many years do you have to work for the VA before you can start collecting a pension?

 

[Oggg]

Other things that I noticed while rotating through the VA:

PROS:
nice computerized medical record, though the anesthesia software was separate
slow pace
lotsa money to buy good equipment
vets will let you do any anesthetic you want
military CRNAs (can be quite good)

CONS
slow pace
a whole hospital of government employees
sicker patients, cardiac surgery
military CRNAs (can be quite bad)

 

[imfrankie]

Other things that I noticed while rotating through the VA:

PROS:
nice computerized medical record, though the anesthesia software was separate
slow pace
lotsa money to buy good equipment
vets will let you do any anesthetic you want
military CRNAs (can be quite good)

CONS
slow pace
a whole hospital of government employees
sicker patients, cardiac surgery
military CRNAs (can be quite bad)

The former military CRNAs I've worked with have usually been quite good.

 

[DaTruMD]

Can anyone else chime in on this as an update? Thanks.

 

[Ronin2258]

I'm actually looking at one myself. Being a vet myself and a former medic, I actually like the population myself.