How healthy is long-term locuming for a young pharmacist?

[glache]

In a bit of a conundrum, and would appreciate any help. I've been locuming (relieving) since registration, so a total of 18 months. Mainly in hospital, but with some retail chucked in. It was only meant to be a temporary measure, and then when I realised that I enjoyed it, and that it was one of the only few ways to get work in this crowded market, I said I'd give it 2 years. So here I am, with 6 months to go. I also received some advice at the end of Oct that a permanent job in a large hospital is the way to go, because I would get to see some weird and wonderful cases (I've only ever worked in small hospitals) and, more importantly, because the structured nature of a large workplace like that would be good (apparently I had developed bad habits as a locum who was forced to do anything and everything to get the job done, and therefore had a weak foundation).

The problem is, I still haven't gotten the travel bug out of my system. In fact, the more I travel, the worse it becomes. It doesn't help that the above advice was given by one director of pharmacy. Another director of pharmacy has done extensive travelling and says she loves what I do (but she might be biased because of that). The other thing is, a permanent job has opened up in a hospital I locumed at, which I really liked, but it's small (200 beds).

So I guess I'm trying to decide:

a) How viable is long-term locuming? How detrimental (or beneficial) will it be to my development as a young pharmacist? If settling is a better option, go to b)
b) A large hospital which I may not like, or a small hospital which I know I like (the small hospital is also 3 hours from the city I want to call home, which is practically next door given it's Oz)

Thank you in advance for any advice you may have.

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[297point1]

My first question was: What the heck is "locuming"?

Google is our friend:
http://lab.bandit.co.nz/sites/medrecruit/learn-more-locuming.htm#whatis

 

[Farcus]

I had to google to find out what is locuming and I thought only physicians did that.

 

[glache]

? DOn't you guys use this term in the States? Anyway it means filling in for other pharmacists, aka relief work, or relieving pharmacist, or travelling pharmacist, or....I've run out of synonyms.

Well? Any advice? This thread has had a couple of hundred views so someone must have an opinion....

 

[2012PharmDgrad]

LOL, I thought I was the only one who didn't know what that term means.

 

[confettiflyer]

i thought it was something dirty at first, haha.

but the full latin phrase is locum tenens

in the use we tend to use either temp (temporary), per diem, relief, or traveling pharmacist to denote some sort of relief work.

 

[pharmasaur]

I don't really think too many pharmacists do that here for a very long time esp. because different states have their own licensing requirements

 

[confettiflyer]

I don't really think too many pharmacists do that here for a very long time esp. because different states have their own licensing requirements

eh..then stay in one state, or just keep doing CE's to maintain licensure in other states. it's not that difficult...it becomes annoying if you so infrequently work in another state it's not worth keeping track and re-upping the license.

 

[297point1]

Not that this was ever common in the U.S., but opportunities used to exist for pharmacists who wanted to do this - northern Maine, the rural Midwest, and the mythical positions in Alaska. Sign a contract for 1-3 years, get paid a significantly larger salary (1.5 to 2 times usual wages), with the employer hoping that the pharmacist grew to like the area and decided to stay.

Now, not so much...

 

[Hello2000]

In the UK there are a lot of locum pharmacists, they are self employed free lancers who cover days off, sickness, vacations, maternity, corporate meetings etc, basically anytime the pharmacist was away.

It used to be great, you could basically work when you wanted and vacation when you wanted however pharmacy schools are opening everywhere in the UK as well and the market is pretty saturated there too.

 

[glache]

Relief work/locuming is not common common here in Oz,but there are enough--there's FB groups for 4 out of the 8 state capitals. It's starting to get busy as people realise it's one of the few ways to get experience (the whole permanent fulltime job thing is saturated) I ordinarily would not have done this, but we nationalised our registration system in July 2010, so though the teething problems were really painful (people waiting up to 6 weeks to get registered and hence losing job offers) it's allowed me to work in some really wonderful places. But I can see how it'd be a pain to nationalise all 52 states (actually, is it 50 or 52? never quite got that fact into my head as a kid)