This just boggles my mind. Maybe I'll just find a PRN locums gig when I retire at the end of the year.
We're actually pretty successful hiring anesthetists and docs (I'm not privy to the doc compensation). But you're right - hospitals don't want to lead the pack in compensation, but they damn sure better not fall behind. We upped our compensation last fall to a pretty market-leading package for our area. We're now back in the middle as everyone around us competes for the same labor pool. We've avoided locums, but heavily incentivize people working on their days off to cover all our locations.