Can an R4 who's passed core do locums?

[Ilikebuttertoast1]

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As title says, can an R4 be credentialed to cover locums?

 

[SeisK]

You need to complete residency to be ABR board eligible. Having completed the Core exam alone doesn’t meet that requirement

But who knows, maybe some places will hire you without board eligibility or certification.

 

[bobjonesbob]

Residents can final sign reports if you have your full state medical license. The limiting factors are going to be getting credentialed, getting malpractice coverage, and getting approval from your program.

 

[wysdoc]

As title says, can an R4 be credentialed to cover locums?

Your malpractice insurance affiliated with your residency will only cover your work there.
If you have a chance to "moonlight" in your institution that would be better, otherwise I would advise waiting until you finish residency

 

[guytakingboards]

4th year (and some late 3rd year) residents at my residency program did (and still do) moonlight for a group in a rural area a few hours away. It was always really funny to get the outside report handed to you and realize it was from your classmate.

 

[Cognovi]

I'm sure plaintiff lawyers would love that scenario

 

[guytakingboards]

I'm sure plaintiff lawyers would love that scenario

I certainly don't endorse residents doing full-read, external moonlighting (and didn't participate myself) but I have several friends who did. To my knowledge, none of them ever got sued.

Since getting out into practice, I've learned things that make those concerns somewhat overblown.

• The residents self-selecting the residents to follow did a pretty good job of not allowing the truly dangerous residents to join their number.
• Even at most, the residents doing said moonlighting were probably only able to dictate maybe 10-15k cases at the most (if they moonlit heavily). The residents' overall risk was case and time-limited. The odds for a catastrophic mistake aren't high (as they aren't high for anyone).
• Most tough/advanced cases got shipped out the tertiary care, so a lot of the time their misses were moot because the mistakes got caught down the line.

Risk management perspective:

• I work in a busy group and see people miss **** all the time. Overwhelmingly someone catches it on a follow-up. Clinicians are smart enough to order more imaging (or curbside a smarter rad) if the reads don't make sense.
• Say someone does sue. As long as the resident is credentialed by the hospital and has malpractice insurance, it's not some egregious event. The malpractice insurance carrier will prolly push harder to settle the case and rad continues about their day. A miss is a miss, doesn't matter if you're board certified or not. A large portion of my partners probably have some malpractice settlement on their record. The group absorbs the increased insurance premiums and everyone goes about their day.

All that is to say, residents doing full-read moonlighting is not the big deal its made out to be.