Advice for new grads when evaluating a position

[Neuronix]

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There are absolutely dishonest physicians and departments out there looking to take advantage of you.

Meet with as many current attendings as possible. If the list of people you're meeting with is tiny and it's a big place, that's a red flag.

Always meet with faculty in your disease site area, especially disease site specialists or leaders and important people in other related specialties. Don't accept "they're not available." It's easy to just email them directly.

If it's a physician-scientist position, make sure you're meeting with the current and recent physician scientists in the department to find out if they're successful and being supported.

If anyone has left in the past few years or is leaving, reach out to them to find out why and get their opinions, good or bad. Current department faculty can be scared into being evasive or downright dishonest. New or recent departures are usually the best people to talk to because they have nothing to lose. It's usually not hard to find them.

Some more tips here: Evaluating an Academic Radiation Oncology Position - PubMed

 

[ramsesthenice]

Agree with all and a couple more for academic positions.

How protected is your research time? Are you expected to cover community satellites or other clinical responsibilities with any regularity? If you can find recently departed faculty, you will get the best answer. Sad fact, the “protected time” on your contract is a one way street. They can pay you less for the research FTE but don’t actually have to honor protecting that time. Be realistic. If you are at a small-mid tier place, you need to help each other out from time to time when life happens. But…there are places that have no qualms giving you clinical assignments that eat up 30+% of your “protected” time.

Do they have robust research support (like regulatory)? If yes, is it with the department or the cancer center (or worse, in heme onc)? These points may seem subtle but can make a huge difference in how much you are actually able to accomplish no matter how much time and money you have. The best sign you can see is current rad oncs (preferably early-mid career) leading multi-D investigator sponsored studies.

Also, try to understand promotion and tenure processes. Are they one and the same or can you get promoted to associate without tenure? What are the criteria for promotion? If they make you pick between a clinical or tenure track, can you change tracks? Fortunately, the number of places that require significant NIH funding or high impact publications for all faculty is dwindling. There are many different models and it’s good to understand what you will have to do to get promoted or tenured if that is important to you. One thing I personally consider a red flag are lots of gray-haired assistant professors on the faculty directory.

 

[Neuronix]

Keep in mind that even if these questions are answered satisfactorily, leaders can just lie to you to get you in the door. Reputation matters.

 

[NotMattSpraker]

There are absolutely dishonest physicians and departments out there looking to take advantage of you.

Meet with as many current attendings as possible. If the list of people you're meeting with is tiny and it's a big place, that's a red flag.

Always meet with faculty in your disease site area, especially disease site specialists or leaders and important people in other related specialties. Don't accept "they're not available." It's easy to just email them directly.

If it's a physician-scientist position, make sure you're meeting with the current and recent physician scientists in the department to find out if they're successful and being supported.

If anyone has left in the past few years or is leaving, reach out to them to find out why and get their opinions, good or bad. Current department faculty can be scared into being evasive or downright dishonest. New or recent departures are usually the best people to talk to because they have nothing to lose. It's usually not hard to find them.

Some more tips here: Evaluating an Academic Radiation Oncology Position - PubMed

Great paper, must read for all grads. One thing I have learned after several years out in the real world is that the operations of the clinic and morale of staff are very important to my job satisfaction and happiness. Not a profound piece of advice and there are hints of this in advice people give, but it is often glossed over in discussing all the other important things. The paper barely mentions it.

I now recommend that people spend some time talking to nurses, therapists, mid-levels, and (especially) clinic managers in addition to faculty.

You'll work with a lot of great doctors all over. In my experience, great administrators are few and far between.

 

[Barcelona PSG]

A few points based on my interview experiences for academic jobs last year and my first-year job experience
1. Salaries for academic jobs range from 280s to 500s
2. Hoarding of consults can happen if there are incentives for seeing more patients. Make sure you are hired not just to babysit machines or cover satellites but also to have decent patient volumes(6-8 consults per week)
3. Try to assess why there is a vacancy in the first place, someone retiring vs someone leaving because of job dissatisfaction
4. Try to do a couple of subsites(beware of breast-only or Paeds only jobs); they don't generate RVUs, and indications for RT are going away big-time for the above sites
5. Talk with nurses, the therapy team and ex-residents; you will get interesting insights about the place and work culture
6. How often are you the doctor of the day?

 

[lifeofpi1]

Graduating med onc fellow on academic job search here. I would just like to say this thread and the paper has been helpful as many of the advice seems to be transferable.