I wanted to ask if anyone has any experience working locums in GI. I have heard good things in terms of earning and time off. I wanted to ask whats the experience you guys had, how much does it pay if you work hard, and what is the downside of it?
I personally don’t have any experience but have been asking around a lot about it, overall here is what I’ve gathered:
Pros:
-Pays really well for the quantity of work you do
-You get to travel and see different places/hospitals/practices
-You get plenty of time off with bargaining power on how you wanna structure your work (eg 2wks on/off, 3 months straight, 1wk on/off)
-Great if you don’t want to commit to something long term
-Contrary to popular belief, jobs aren’t always in rural areas. A lot are in metro areas, they’re just too short handed to keep up with volume.
-You get to write off a bunch of stuff (new car, gas, travel, etc) as part of your business expense
Cons:
-May be difficult for new grads since you’ll likely be on an island (they wouldn’t need to hire locums if they have a full GI Dept already)
-The support staff you get (tech, nurse, etc) may not be super familiar with GI needs so be prepared to do some teching and troubleshooting on your own (need to know all your devices/equipment well)
-Job board/openings can be unpredictable, practices and also cancel the opening fairly close to start date. So there is a chance you can be stuck without a job at the last minute (though not super likely given the perpetual need for GI)
-Don’t do it to check out if you wanna stay there permanently. Example: don’t do locums at hospital A in City X to see if you like it enough to stay bc there’s always a non-compete in the locum contract and the hospital is not gonna “buy you out”. If you wanna be at hospital A in City X, just apply for a job there straight up.
-You’re a temp worker so you don’t get to build the same collegiality, other people you rely on (surgeons, radiology, IR) may not be as responsive to you
-You don’t get the retirement benefits (and other benefits) as you would in a group
No one is gonna have numbers bc how much you make depends on what you consider working hard and where you’re practicing. Working 50wks and being on q2 call is working hard for some and normal for others. Also there are so many models out there that’s it’s hard to compare (GI hospitalist, pure outpt, mix of inpt/outpt, rural setting, inner city, nightly call, no call at all, how many pts do you see in clinic/scope in a day, hospital system vs academic center vs private practice, which locum company are you with and what’s their cut, all those will affect your pay to various degrees)
Again these are not my opinions, just answers I’ve gathered from a bunch of people.
