Locum Tenens

[davidgareau]

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Does anyone know if most Locum Tenens jobs require a certain number of years of practice? I'm specifically curious if I would qualify for and be able to do ONLY locum tenens work. I like to move around a lot and this is one of the benefits I see of being a physician. So, is it possible to simply finish my residency and then go get random locum tenens jobs?

I saw a site called gaswork.com for locum tenens jobs for Anaesthesiologists.... do you know any similar sites for other specialities? Particularly Emergency Medicine and Pathology, but any would be great.

Would I make more working the same amount of hours Locum Tenens or in a permanent position if other factors (city, specialty, etc) were the same?

Do you know the range of salaries for locum tenens for different specialties? What is the most you have or KNOW someone has made doing locum tenens? What specialty and with how many years of post-residency experience?

thanks

p.s. is there a good subsection for general questions in the forum, I might have overlooked it but I didnt' see GENERAL (except in the international student section).

 

[Rafa]

Here's a good informational site:

http://www.studentdoc.com/locum-tenens.html

I'd never heard of this before. It sounds awesome. Like the closest thing to being a traveling doctor (apart from going into rural medicine or MSF).

edit: whoa. Read this: http://www.aafp.org/fpm/990200fm/41.html

 

[lihtris]

try JC Nationwide. I think they hire ER docs for rural medicine.

 

[MossPoh]

Yea..beware the travelling around sounds a lot better than it really is...a lot of these guys are just viewed as a necessary evil type thing....It isn't that they are bad doctors but when you constantly hop hospitals you are going to be more prone to mistakes and combatibility issues. One of the locum guys at the hospital I was at nearly killed some poor woman which everyone makes mistakes...but when you make a mistake and you are the other guy...that is when people start to talk crap. Many times you can just be treated like a blacksheep unless it is a situation where you worked at one place for a while but then decided to move to another (usually because of a wife or something it seems) and then you come back on vacation every now and then to do a little work and help the other guys out.

 

[MirrorTodd]

p.s. is there a good subsection for general questions in the forum, I might have overlooked it but I didnt' see GENERAL (except in the international student section).

Try the General Residency section. You'll get better results there. I would also advise searching. Some people get annoyed by multiple threads and Locum tenens has definitely been discussed.

 

[Rafa]

Yea..beware the travelling around sounds a lot better than it really is...a lot of these guys are just viewed as a necessary evil type thing....It isn't that they are bad doctors but when you constantly hop hospitals you are going to be more prone to mistakes and combatibility issues. One of the locum guys at the hospital I was at nearly killed some poor woman which everyone makes mistakes...but when you make a mistake and you are the other guy...that is when people start to talk crap. Many times you can just be treated like a blacksheep unless it is a situation where you worked at one place for a while but then decided to move to another (usually because of a wife or something it seems) and then you come back on vacation every now and then to do a little work and help the other guys out.

Yeah, there does seem to be a bit of a 'hired gun'/bounty hunter aspect to it (from the perspective of the people who need his 'services'). Maybe I'll just stick to rural medicine - building trust over time, instead of having it continually torn down.

 

[HDMTX]

There was recently an article in the ACP Observer stating that locum tenens was becoming quite a hot commodity in terms of lifestyle and choice for both new graduates and established physicians... so yes... it's definitely an option.

 

[MollyMalone]

Try the General Residency section. You'll get better results there. I would also advise searching. Some people get annoyed by multiple threads and Locum tenens has definitely been discussed.

I concur -- this really isn't a good forum for this question. I'll move you over. 🙂

 

[48 hours]

Here's a good informational site:

http://www.studentdoc.com/locum-tenens.html

I'd never heard of this before. It sounds awesome. Like the closest thing to being a traveling doctor (apart from going into rural medicine or MSF).

edit: whoa. Read this: http://www.aafp.org/fpm/990200fm/41.html

That's funny! I also googled this, because I (embarrassingly) was not exactly sure I knew what it was and came across that AAFP article. It's a little older ('99) and sort of from an FP point of view, but I thought it had a lot of info/advice about this sort of thing. I learned a lot, anyway. 😀

 

[davidgareau]

I did search and read a bunch of threads.... but I had specific questions.
Also, I asked which section I should put this in, thanks for the answer... general residency??? Are only residents able to do Locum Tenens... are they even allowed... I thought that residency was a learning/studying period, if so, would you be allowed (or even have time) to go work somewhere for a couple months at a time?

 

[skypilot]

Does anyone know if most Locum Tenens jobs require a certain number of years of practice? I'm specifically curious if I would qualify for and be able to do ONLY locum tenens work. I like to move around a lot and this is one of the benefits I see of being a physician. So, is it possible to simply finish my residency and then go get random locum tenens jobs?

I saw a site called gaswork.com for locum tenens jobs for Anaesthesiologists.... do you know any similar sites for other specialities? Particularly Emergency Medicine and Pathology, but any would be great.

Would I make more working the same amount of hours Locum Tenens or in a permanent position if other factors (city, specialty, etc) were the same?

Do you know the range of salaries for locum tenens for different specialties? What is the most you have or KNOW someone has made doing locum tenens? What specialty and with how many years of post-residency experience?

thanks

p.s. is there a good subsection for general questions in the forum, I might have overlooked it but I didnt' see GENERAL (except in the international student section).

My sister has been doing locums for 11 years as an internal medicine doc. She gets a free apartment and rental car at her sites. The jobs usually last 6 to 12 months after which she often takes a month or two of vacation. She seems to return to the same sites periodically including Alaska, Hawaii and California.

I think IM or FP are easier fields to do locums because there is a constant demand for docs

 

[Winged Scapula]

I did search and read a bunch of threads.... but I had specific questions.
Also, I asked which section I should put this in, thanks for the answer... general residency??? Are only residents able to do Locum Tenens... are they even allowed... I thought that residency was a learning/studying period, if so, would you be allowed (or even have time) to go work somewhere for a couple months at a time?

This thread was put into the General Residency Forum because we don't have forums specific for physicians who have completed their residency. SDN has not decided to include that as a widely needed topic of discussion.

So, although the issue of Locum Tenens is placed into the General Residency Forum, it is of interest to residents nearing the completion of their training and is generally only available to those who have completed their training or who possess an unrestricted license and are in the final throes of completing said training.

Residency programs do not generally allow you time off to go somewhere and work. Thus, Locum work is designed for the physician who has finishe residency.

 

[sblau001]

Locum tenens can be done by anyone with a medical license. I myself have done some locum work, in proverbial "doc-in-a-box" circumstances. All my experiences have been great.

 

[secretwave101]

Don't worry about the naysayers. That article was written long enough ago that L.C. wasn't as well-developed as it is now. Some docs have been doing it for years, love it, and have had no problems.

And if you screw up? Sucks no matter what kind of doc you are or how long you've worked somewhere.

 

[ChipSweeper]

look at Martin/Fletcher - they seem to be above board - perm and locum tenens.

 

[dragonfly99]

I subscribe to a magazine called Locum Life. There is a digital/online version too. It is put out by some of the numerous companies that recruit and hire locum tenens docs. I think locums fall into 2 main categories - those just out of residency, and folks who are trying to semiretire but still want to work. There is a smaller number who do this all the time...as skypilot mentions above.

It's definitely an option for some specialties...family practice, internal medicine, ER, anesthesia, radiology, and even a few positions in other specialties. I think you'd have to be pretty adaptable to deal with an ever-changing work environment, but if you are willing to go and spend several months at a time somewhere, it could be rewarding.

In general for most jobs they like someone who has finished residency and is board certified, but for some jobs they would take someone who isn't. For example, I know that many last year/upper year radiology residents sometimes do locum tenens for a weekend or a week at a time, or at night, etc. Many medicine fellows (like myself) do "moonlighting" and/or locum tenens type stuff. Personally I only work @one local hospital that is one of the ones we use for our medicine residency, so I don't really consider that locum tenens per se.