Job offers after residency

[mustangsally65]

I was reading the EM forum, and someone started a thread asking the senior residents what were some of the offers they received while looking for a job after residency. I was wondering if anyone had any information about family medicine job offers. Has anyone gotten any and would you mind sharing?

Some of the ones I saw in the other forum included a certain amount in education expense reimbursement per year, moonlighting opportunities, four weeks vacation a year. I'm sure these are for hospitals, and most family physicians don't work for hospitals quite like EM physicians do, but I'd love to hear about all the options out there.

I'm still trying to get into med school, but the residency programs I've been researching on the internet look great at ~40K a year, so seeing numbers close to 200K is just uncomprehensible to me at the moment. 40K sounds good to me instead of being a poor student with little income!

Let me also say that it's not about the money, because most of us with an interest in family medicine are certainly not going into it for the pay. I was curious what the average salaries are for rural medicine in particular.

I've got an interview in about 10 days and I'm trying to be informed. I'm interviewing for a summer program at my state school that has an emphasis on primary care in rural areas, which is what I'm interested in. I don't feel like I have a good grasp of what family physicians' lives are really like in a rural area.

Thanks for any help!

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[dimples]

i saw an ad in the american family physician mag over the winter for an FP job in rural alabama, offering $265K. it included considerable ER time and OB. some other ads for small cities (pop. ~150,000) in illinois offered about $150K plus loan repayment assistance, with no OB and not too much call. i guess it depends on how much you want to do. a lot of rural FPs i've talked to have a decent life, get to do pretty much anything they want in the office, etc. and a lot of them set up cash-only practices. not only does it make sense to do this where patients don't bother with insurance (because they don't go to the doctor as often), but it also ends up being more lucrative in some cases.

that's all i've got.

 

[shemozart]

Haha, I love it on other forums when people say they don't really care about what the salary is, they're just curious what so-and-so makes... It usually means a little greed, except on the FP page, where it's about reality and trying to find out what kind of practices are feasible. Crazy, huh? As a fellow FPer I'm with you....

Two rural practices I've spent time in:
1. Small town of 1100 with towns of 60000 and 100000 75 minutes in each direction. 4 FPs and a general surgeon with a tiny hospital - no HMO affiliation, independent. Everyone rounds on their own patients each day. q4 call for the little ER and OB combined. I believe that the ER doc answered calls on all inpatients, although i may be wrong. 4 days a week in office. One of those days at rural outpost clinic (town of 400 20 minutes away). MD had been there 10 years and was making 100-120k. Excellent cost of living, cool town with neat people, wouldn't mind living there myself someday. Seemed like excellent quality of life.
2. Town of 4100 on major interstate 70 miles from two separate Level 1 Trauma big medical center places. 15 FPs and 2 general surgeons with bigger hospital (30-40 beds??) - no HMO, independent. Everyone rounds on their own patients every day. Each doc is on beeper call and delivers their own continuity OB unless they sign out. FPs run ER on 12 and 24 hours shifts - you get choice of how much time (if any) you spend there. I believe ER doc covers calls on all the inpatients at night. MD I talked to about salary had been living there 3 years and was making 270k delivering maybe 2-3 babies/month (maybe more) and working 1-3 12 hours shifts per month in ER. You work 4 days per week in office. Superb cost of living, but town in general seemed much more uneducated, not as pretty, but had cool outdoor activities and state parks nearby. Historically one of the poorer counties in the state.

Either way, good opportunities! Last I heard the second one was hiring. I know of little communities around my state and the neighboring states like this offering similar opportunities.

 

[lateness]

i saw an ad in the american family physician mag over the winter for an FP job in rural alabama, offering $265K. it included considerable ER time and OB. some other ads for small cities (pop. ~150,000) in illinois offered about $150K plus loan repayment assistance, with no OB and not too much call. i guess it depends on how much you want to do. a lot of rural FPs i've talked to have a decent life, get to do pretty much anything they want in the office, etc. and a lot of them set up cash-only practices. not only does it make sense to do this where patients don't bother with insurance (because they don't go to the doctor as often), but it also ends up being more lucrative in some cases.

that's all i've got.

da*m thats good. for rural docs i bet they are lovin it. by the way did you need any extra fellowship in that job? like OB or er? do u know/remember if they asked for many years after residency for experience?

 

[mustangsally65]

1. Small town of 1100 with towns of 60000 and 100000 75 minutes in each direction. 4 FPs and a general surgeon with a tiny hospital - no HMO affiliation, independent. Everyone rounds on their own patients each day. q4 call for the little ER and OB combined. I believe that the ER doc answered calls on all inpatients, although i may be wrong. 4 days a week in office. One of those days at rural outpost clinic (town of 400 20 minutes away). MD had been there 10 years and was making 100-120k. Excellent cost of living, cool town with neat people, wouldn't mind living there myself someday. Seemed like excellent quality of life.

This is very similar to where I live, (1000 full time residents, lots of summer residents that are only seasonal) except we have more specialists because it's a town where a lot of people retire and there are a lot of benefactors for the hospital (private).

My doc does four days a week in office, is on call in the ER (don't know how frequently) and she used to round on her own patients in the hospital and attached long term care facility until she gave up some of her hospital priviliges (after 20 years) to not be as busy. She's one of my inspirations, and probably the main reason why I'm attracted to family medicine.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I appreciate it!

 

[RuralMedicine]

Haha, I love it on other forums when people say they don't really care about what the salary is, they're just curious what so-and-so makes... It usually means a little greed, except on the FP page, where it's about reality and trying to find out what kind of practices are feasible. Crazy, huh? As a fellow FPer I'm with you....

Two rural practices I've spent time in:
1. Small town of 1100 with towns of 60000 and 100000 75 minutes in each direction. 4 FPs and a general surgeon with a tiny hospital - no HMO affiliation, independent. Everyone rounds on their own patients each day. q4 call for the little ER and OB combined. I believe that the ER doc answered calls on all inpatients, although i may be wrong. 4 days a week in office. One of those days at rural outpost clinic (town of 400 20 minutes away). MD had been there 10 years and was making 100-120k. Excellent cost of living, cool town with neat people, wouldn't mind living there myself someday. Seemed like excellent quality of life.
2. Town of 4100 on major interstate 70 miles from two separate Level 1 Trauma big medical center places. 15 FPs and 2 general surgeons with bigger hospital (30-40 beds??) - no HMO, independent. Everyone rounds on their own patients every day. Each doc is on beeper call and delivers their own continuity OB unless they sign out. FPs run ER on 12 and 24 hours shifts - you get choice of how much time (if any) you spend there. I believe ER doc covers calls on all the inpatients at night. MD I talked to about salary had been living there 3 years and was making 270k delivering maybe 2-3 babies/month (maybe more) and working 1-3 12 hours shifts per month in ER. You work 4 days per week in office. Superb cost of living, but town in general seemed much more uneducated, not as pretty, but had cool outdoor activities and state parks nearby. Historically one of the poorer counties in the state.

Either way, good opportunities! Last I heard the second one was hiring. I know of little communities around my state and the neighboring states like this offering similar opportunities.

I'd be surprised if the ED is fielding floor calls at night--but I could be wrong (and if the ED is basically functioning as an afterhours admitting room rather than an ED then I may be). Likely they rotate call or everyone takes their own call. We rotate here and you cover all adult patients from 5p-8a, if someone crumps then you come in and take care of it (with the caveat that if someone actually codes the ED physician will start running the code until you arrive but usually our nurses are pretty good at letting us know when things are going the wrong way and we come in avert the code). You must come in for ICU admissions, with floor admissions you have the option of guiding the ED physician through what admitting orders you want over the phone. (This requires you to trust their assessment of the patient and if you don't then you end up needing to come in--which does happen).

 

[dr.smurf]

small town medicine can be very rewarding and fun. i once worked at this small hospital where there were 3 FP's. they were in the clinic 4-5 days a week. they took turns working the 3 bed ER from 6a-6p (each doc one week increments). at which point a 2nd or 3rd yr FP resident moonlighted from 6p-6a mon-fri and weekends. the er doc was called for all emergent floor calls and started the code until the attending made it in. there was one attending who let the er doc do everything and stayed in bed. the hosp didnt have OB capabilities. these fp docs were pretty awesome. they actually had to use their brain, as opposed to my suburban hospital training program where consults are as common as IV fluids. each doc rounded on their own pts. the clinic was attached to the hosp so it was pretty conveinent to run back and forth. i thought it was pretty cool. but, rural medicine isnt for everybody.

 

[allendo]

I saw an offer in eastern texas where I'm from 300,000 guaranteed with loan forgiveness and call one in six. Makes me think twice about not b/c a FP doc.

 

[lateness]

I saw an offer in eastern texas where I'm from 300,000 guaranteed with loan forgiveness and call one in six. Makes me think twice about not b/c a FP doc.

about not becoming a FP? i didnt understand? not too shabby, 3hundred grand