Nocturnist schedule

[beingandtime]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hi,

I'm a medical student who loves IM. I think that it's a great fit for me.

I also do really well at night, and am pretty nocturnal, as a person. I think that I would love to work as a nocturnist. Being able to practice pure medicine, and having the wards at night sound awesome.

That said, I've seen some nocturnist jobs that are 7 on 14 off. Which sounds awesome!
I'm interested in outreach medicine and medical missions. I believe that I will have time to fulfill my interests.

However, I'm a little worried that I don't have a good pulse on the market. My question is, how rare is the 2:1 setup? Is the 7 on 14 off a realistic expectation I can have coming out of IM residency?


I'm a single guy, and am willing to move wherever. I don't mind wherever, so long as I can have a block of time off. Also, I would take other things, like census, procedures, resident support, and cross coverage as secondary considerations.

Thank you very much for helping me out!

 

[bananas85]

Nocturnist are in pretty high demand, cause no one wants to do night. Also they have to be in the hospital for the whole 12 hours, as opposed to a morning attending that can leave once he is done with rounding (depending on how admissions are set up).

Given the mismatch with supply and demand, you can pretty much bargain whatever you want. I am sure you wont have a hard time finding 7 on 14 off. However the salary will be lower cause you are working less than full time with that schedule. Off top of my head that is 0.6 of regular full time.

 

[chessknt]

Wait until you are done with residency before you start dreaming. Since I was a medical student the entire hospitalist market has undergone a major shift and I would expect it do so over the next 10 years as well as market forces change.

That being said, I would expect working part time as you describe to definitely be viable if you are as flexible as you say. The pay cut is going to be your biggest problem but by then youll hopefully have an idea of how much you need.

 

[InternalMedMD]

Anything is possible with nocturnist gigs. I did international medicine for 3 years in haiti and worked some internal medicine hospitalist locums jobs to pay the bills.

Two things:
1/ The less number of days you work, the less you make (obviously!).
2/ You may not find the 'ideal' location... but you will definitely find the schedule you are looking for. Your flexibility is key!
e.g. I wanted to live in NYC after training there, but decided that a better idea was to visit NYC often and actually work in rural Maine where i found a good locums gig. The patient load was a joke (ie. 4-5 calls a night total/ 1-2 admissions), the shifts each paid $1600 overnight, and they were happy to have me stack them together in two blocks and only work 10 nights a month. Additionally, I could just commit month-to-month. In a major popular city - they'll want a commitment in terms of nights/months, and total months, oh - and the pay will be less.

 

[DaTruMD]

Anything is possible with nocturnist gigs. I did international medicine for 3 years in haiti and worked some internal medicine hospitalist locums jobs to pay the bills.

Two things:
1/ The less number of days you work, the less you make (obviously!).
2/ You may not find the 'ideal' location... but you will definitely find the schedule you are looking for. Your flexibility is key!
e.g. I wanted to live in NYC after training there, but decided that a better idea was to visit NYC often and actually work in rural Maine where i found a good locums gig. The patient load was a joke (ie. 4-5 calls a night total/ 1-2 admissions), the shifts each paid $1600 overnight, and they were happy to have me stack them together in two blocks and only work 10 nights a month. Additionally, I could just commit month-to-month. In a major popular city - they'll want a commitment in terms of nights/months, and total months, oh - and the pay will be less.

This sounds appealing for someone like me who has 350+ in medical school loans.

 

[beingandtime]

Hey guys, thanks for all your inputs. Nocturnists seem to have really sweet gigs!