Making yourself better job candidate...

[CajunGas]

I graduated from anesthesia/cc fellowship 18 months ago and took a "good" job at a community doing both anesthesia and critical care. As has happened with a lot of my residency classmates the first job was not all it was cracked up to me. I have another year left on my contract here but have privately committed to returning to academics where I was happier. I recently became dual board certified. What can I do to make myself a better candidate for academic jobs specifically in the Midwest and south?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[criticalelement]

That is easy. Do another fellowship!

 

[IlDestriero]

The academic critical care physicians I work with all are expected to engage in serious research. You have to be able to justify working less than 2 weeks a month. I'm not sure about adult academic CC. Perhaps you could do one week in the ICU and 3 in the OR?
You have experience, leverage that. You're competing with people right out of training. Also find an area or 2 of special interest and try to emphasize that. Centers of excellence and special teams are becoming the norm in academic anesthesia, the generalist isn't offering anything more. What are you bringing to the table and how will you benefit the department as a new hire. This is what we consider for our new hires. Strong clinician is a given.

 

[deleted171991]

FTE is usually either two 7-day weeks in the ICU, or one 7-day week in the ICU and two 5-day weeks in the OR.

It's preposterous to even assume that an intensivist does not bring anything special to the table, that s/he is just a generalist. An intensivist can probably kick ass anywhere from neuro to thoracic, vascular or transplant anesthesia, just to name a few. All s/he needs is a hospital with sick-enough patients. If TEE-trained, cardiac is possible, too.

Plus let's not forget that more and more anesthesia departments try to extend to the ICUs, to capture more of the bundled payments (coming soon to a hospital near you).

 

[criticalelement]

the generalist isn't offering anything more.

Who does the general work? The bread and butter? Isn't that the lions share of the cases? Do you need a five year residency to put someone to sleep for a cholecystectomy?

 

[deleted171991]

Who does the general work? The bread and butter? Isn't that the lions share of the cases? Do you need a five year residency to put someone to sleep for a cholecystectomy?

You need a professor who specializes in cholecystectomy research.

 

[kazuma]

FTE is usually either two 7-day weeks in the ICU, or one 7-day week in the ICU and two 5-day weeks in the OR.

It's preposterous to even assume that an intensivist does not bring anything special to the table, that s/he is just a generalist. An intensivist can probably kick ass anywhere from neuro to thoracic, vascular or transplant anesthesia, just to name a few. All s/he needs is a hospital with sick-enough patients. If TEE-trained, cardiac is possible, too.

Plus let's not forget that more and more anesthesia departments try to extend to the ICUs, to capture more of the bundled payments (coming soon to a hospital near you).

I don't know what your place is like but the academic centers I'm familiar with including mine have pretty distinct territorial lines with cardiac. I've only done one heart with a Ccm attending and it was because the rest of the heart team was unavailable. It was just a straightforward valve or cabg that any new grad should be able to do in pp. Haven't seen a Ccm attending scheduled in the heart room since. Often times the CCM attendings get scutted out in garbage rooms during their OR weeks. They aren't a part of the regular OR call pool so they have a lot of late days in a row instead of the usual pre/post call early days.