I have my first job interview this week (private hospital system) and I was told that I will be meeting with the VP operations and the hospital CEO/president. I am meeting with the chief medical officer separately.
I prepared a list of questions regarding work responsibilities, office staffing/equipment, benefits/salary etc. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas about what I should expect to discuss during these particular meetings? I'm not sure what questions to direct to whom.
I would let them drive the discussion and ask any questions you may have at the end. I've always felt that it's a buyer's market finally for derm graduates. The group should be selling themselves to you and highlighting what makes them different or better than the other groups you may be considering. If there are any questions they haven't touched on, you can always ask at the end and I'm sure they'll direct you to who answers which questions.
You can always do a followup call / email / visit if you are interested and have more questions afterwards.
Questions to ask (not necessarily at the 1st interview, not necessarily at all if you don't feel comfortable, but from a list I've compiled through my interview experiences. Some of these are obviously more appropriate to ask when it comes to the actual contract negotiation):
- what's the salary structure? (I don't like it if I have to ask multiple times. I find honest groups should either bring this up at the 1st interview or shortly after the 1st interview)
- what's the schedule like? (if you only want a 4 day workweek, you want to make sure you ask for it from day 1)
- how many rooms do you work out of and how many support staff per physician? (this can make a huge difference in your productivity and subsequently, your pay)
- how many providers work on a given day? (the more providers there are, the bigger the opportunity for conflict. the new hire usually loses these battles when it comes to squabbles over rooms and support staff)
- is there an expectation to oversee midlevels? (and if so, how are you compensated for this?)
- ability to pursue special interests or research? (if you have any within derm)
- average number of pts seen per day / hour
- any inpatient consults?
- call schedule?
- dermpath / mohs referrals: are these in-house or not? If not, who do they send to?
- who covers the malpractice tail if you should leave?
- what is the radius of the non-compete?
- I've mentioned this before in other posts but I find the most helpful question is to ask if they could provide you with the names of any dermatologists who have left their group within the last few years. Contact with those docs is unlikely to be helpful (some are afraid of airing dirty laundry in a small field and will give you a vague answer like leaving for family reasons. Others will go the scorched earth route and provide unhelpful excessive criticism). I find what's more useful is how the group responds to this question. A group that gets huffy and defensive and (you can scoff but I've had this happen at multiple interviews) goes on to bash the departed dermatologists may not be a great group to join. A group that is willing to provide that information and offer to explain their side of the split may often be a fairer, more reasonable group to join.
