How to find and apply for community jobs

[deis11]

Hi All,

I’m a second year fellow at a heavily academic program and have decided that a life in academics is not a good fit. There’s not a lot of resources in my program for identifying and applying for community onc jobs (it’s been awhile since any of the graduating fellows chose the community path and the faculty are focused on mentoring physician scientists/clinical investigators), so I was wondering how/where y’all would recommend starting? Are most opportunities publicly posted or is it majority word of mouth? When should I start getting my resume out there? Any advice would be appreciated!

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[gritsngravy]

Only n of 1 but I just emailed a couple people out of the blue from word of mouth. I was also geographically limited so only researched one city. Both interviewed me within a month and I took the job. You're correct that these jobs aren't well marketed from your program, and it's hard to know what's legitimate or not from random recruiting texts/emails that pop up frequently. Feel free to DM to talk more specifics.

 

[osprey099]

It's a shame that a lot of the "top" oncology programs don't market and even discourage going into community/private practice. That's why it's so important to pick a fellowship program based on your eventual career goal, rather than perceived prestige of the program. This isn't college, med school, or even residency anymore. Unless you are gunning for an assistant professor at an ivory tower institution, nobody is going to care where you went to fellowship, as long as it's an ACGME accredited place.

I interviewed at several "top" places, one of which only has 6 months of total clinical time with 2.5 years of research. I ended up ranking my current "mid tier" program first and currently very happy here, with a private practice job already lined up when I graduate next summer. In my 4 job interviews at private practices and community hospitals, not one person cared about the perceived prestige of my fellowship nor did anybody care or ask about my research. They just want to know if you're a good team player and a hard worker.

Also, some of the heavy research programs might actually be a detriment when it comes to taking the boards. A lot of the places might discourage you from double boarding and some places (like NIH) have had trouble with past fellows failing boards, likely cause they almost never see standard of care and see mainly clinical trial patients.

 

[gutonc]

Pick a location or 3 that you're interested in and start calling/emailing groups. It will take a little Google-fu to find out who to contact, but it's not that difficult. This far in advance, you have plenty of time to make connections and start talking to people.

 

[deis11]

It's a shame that a lot of the "top" oncology programs don't market and even discourage going into community/private practice. That's why it's so important to pick a fellowship program based on your eventual career goal, rather than perceived prestige of the program. This isn't college, med school, or even residency anymore. Unless you are gunning for an assistant professor at an ivory tower institution, nobody is going to care where you went to fellowship, as long as it's an ACGME accredited place.

I interviewed at several "top" places, one of which only has 6 months of total clinical time with 2.5 years of research. I ended up ranking my current "mid tier" program first and currently very happy here, with a private practice job already lined up when I graduate next summer. In my 4 job interviews at private practices and community hospitals, not one person cared about the perceived prestige of my fellowship nor did anybody care or ask about my research. They just want to know if you're a good team player and a hard worker.

Also, some of the heavy research programs might actually be a detriment when it comes to taking the boards. A lot of the places might discourage you from double boarding and some places (like NIH) have had trouble with past fellows failing boards, likely cause they almost never see standard of care and see mainly clinical trial patients.

Tend to agree with you. I've spent so long on the academic hamster wheel drinking the kool aid (med school, lab, residency, fellowship) that I never took the time to consider other options. Now that I'm 12 years in and priorities in life have shifted, I can't stand the idea of taking an academic position, fighting tooth and nail for funding, and literally paying my institution with the grant funding that I earned for the privilege of staying employed. I'd rather just do my best to take care of patients and focus on my family. I think that there should be better mentorship, particularly in academic leaning med schools/residencies, to coach folks on the different types of career paths out there and to help them understand that training takes a long time and people change during that time.

That being said, I do believe that the training I had in residency and now fellowship has been high quality. Everyone in my program double boards and passes for the most part. I am, however, finding that I have to go out of my way to get a broad based clinical experience as most of the fellows stick to their disease silo and only spend a half day a week in clinic.

@gritsngravy and @gutonc - appreciate you taking the time to give some advice. I too am geographically limited to my current area, but there are a good number of groups around here. I'll start emailing - will post back in a bit with my experiences.

 

[HemOncCheng]

looking forward to that, best of luck! research experience comes with many attributes, at least being resilient is one of it

 

[deis11]

Perhaps I shouldn't be suprised, but @gutonc and @gritsngravy replies were spot on. I emailed folks in local groups and literally had responses/interviews within 1 week. Now im trying to figure out whether hospital employed vs. pp is right for me. I'll continue to update.

 

[ONC2023]

Hey Deis11 - I’m in a similar boat in that I’ve decided to leave academics and am looking for fully clinical positions. Just curious if you’re looking for a disease specific position or are you going fully general heme onc? I’ve found some disease specific positions outside of the academic ivory tower in hospital employed groups.

 

[HemeOncHopeful19]

I’ll add that if you haven’t had luck finding someone to email, I did once just call up the front desk of a private practice and ask if there was someone to reach out to.

It took a bit to work up to doing that since it went against every millennial instinct I had but it did work very smoothly and I had an interview set up from it (ended up cancelling after spouse didn’t get a job in the area).

If I had joined them my first order of business was going to be “guys we have gotta put a contact email on the website or I’m gonna be the last person my age that we hire”

 

[deis11]

Hey Deis11 - I’m in a similar boat in that I’ve decided to leave academics and am looking for fully clinical positions. Just curious if you’re looking for a disease specific position or are you going fully general heme onc? I’ve found some disease specific positions outside of the academic ivory tower in hospital employed groups.

The hospital owned groups im looking at are more disease specific and PP tends to be more generalist (with exception of breast). Everyone sees heme. Id bet at some of the larger PP you may find disease specific, but all the groups in my area are pretty small (like 4-5 docs). They make bank though and have ownership decisionmaking/staff, so thats the draw

 

[ONC2023]

Thanks Deis. Yes, that’s my experience so far. Hospital groups offer disease specific. PP is general. The one exception to the PP rule is that I ran across one large US oncology practice that is disease specific.

Edit: other thing I worry about in small PP groups is mentoring. Will I have someone to run questions and difficult cases by? Likely going to choose large hospital group for that reason.

 

[Dohle Body]

Has anyone been rejected for a job after in an person interview or is getting to the in person interview pretty much always resulting in an offer? Assuming a modicum of social skills, of course

 

[HemeOncHopeful19]

Has anyone been rejected for a job after in a person interview or is getting to the in person interview pretty much always resulting in an offer? Assuming a modicum of social skills, of course

I haven’t personally but know someone who did because the offer was accepted by someone else with more years of experience etc.

 

[gutonc]

Perhaps I shouldn't be suprised, but @gutonc and @gritsngravy replies were spot on. I emailed folks in local groups and literally had responses/interviews within 1 week. Now im trying to figure out whether hospital employed vs. pp is right for me. I'll continue to update.

I had a couple of situations where I didn't extend an offer to a good candidate because we had interviewed a better candidate more or less simultaneously. I told them to keep in touch and offered one of them a job a couple of years later which they took (the other was established and happy).

 

[onconc]

Has anyone been rejected for a job after in an person interview or is getting to the in person interview pretty much always resulting in an offer? Assuming a modicum of social skills, of course

Yes, I have been rejected after an in-person interview. This was after they paid for airfare and accommodation for the interview. It was a hospital employed position. Basically they strung me along until their favorite candidate accepted their offer.