- Joined
- May 2, 2012
- Messages
- 2,516
- Reaction score
- 1,131
Greetings. I'm a new attending that joined a pseudo academic group on the east coast this past August as my first job. Things started off well but recently the floor has been pulled out from under us. A large hospital corporation has bought us out and we are expecting and being warned of sweeping changes in the coming months. Initially this job made a lot of sense to me because of the tremendous schedule flexibility and time off. It is not official yet, but that is likely going away. Because of this, the job I agreed to is effectively going to be a brand new job. New surgeons, new EMR, new support staff. And if I'm being honest, I am not incredibly passionate about training residents (many are great, we just have one particularly weak class that is not great to interact with).
Enter the new job offer. Private practice closer to home/family with atrociously low hourly pay. It is more of a "eat what you kill" practice, not so much in case type but more in you work more, you make more. You work less, you make less. Hourly pay is almost insulting, and is lower than almost any CRNA I know. So after hearing the lady out, who is the chief of this group, she told me this job makes sense because one can easily take a lot of call and not work much. Given the group dynamics you could be on call as much or as little as you want. It's home call, and in a week they average less than 2 cases between the hours of 8pm and 6am. There is OB, but they average 20 deliveries a month. You are effectively paid for your availability at home. They showed me their weekend case logs, and in the past 2 months (8 weekends) there have been 5 cases TOTAL. Now, they are busy during the day. They do cardiac, major vascular, thoracic nearly daily. I was expecting to see a lot of takebacks on the OR case logs and there is the occasional one but it is seemingly rare. It has been this way for years. This group hasn't hired an MD in about six years and recently just lost one to retirement.
So I am highly considering this job. The group, and especially the anesthesia chair has been incredibly transparent. She showed me three of her paystubs and is averaging between 50-60k per month pre tax and has three young children that she says she's able to see every night. My current job, which was previously a "lifestyle" job, is not that anymore. I am working more hours and taking more call than anyone in my group anticipated. I could potentially increase my salary by up to 50% at this other position.
Am I crazy for entertaining a job with such low hourly pay? Benefits are extremely average, but my current benefits are as well. I'm planning on flying to this place to spend a day or two with them and see the nuts and bolts.
Enter the new job offer. Private practice closer to home/family with atrociously low hourly pay. It is more of a "eat what you kill" practice, not so much in case type but more in you work more, you make more. You work less, you make less. Hourly pay is almost insulting, and is lower than almost any CRNA I know. So after hearing the lady out, who is the chief of this group, she told me this job makes sense because one can easily take a lot of call and not work much. Given the group dynamics you could be on call as much or as little as you want. It's home call, and in a week they average less than 2 cases between the hours of 8pm and 6am. There is OB, but they average 20 deliveries a month. You are effectively paid for your availability at home. They showed me their weekend case logs, and in the past 2 months (8 weekends) there have been 5 cases TOTAL. Now, they are busy during the day. They do cardiac, major vascular, thoracic nearly daily. I was expecting to see a lot of takebacks on the OR case logs and there is the occasional one but it is seemingly rare. It has been this way for years. This group hasn't hired an MD in about six years and recently just lost one to retirement.
So I am highly considering this job. The group, and especially the anesthesia chair has been incredibly transparent. She showed me three of her paystubs and is averaging between 50-60k per month pre tax and has three young children that she says she's able to see every night. My current job, which was previously a "lifestyle" job, is not that anymore. I am working more hours and taking more call than anyone in my group anticipated. I could potentially increase my salary by up to 50% at this other position.
Am I crazy for entertaining a job with such low hourly pay? Benefits are extremely average, but my current benefits are as well. I'm planning on flying to this place to spend a day or two with them and see the nuts and bolts.