On the job hunt

[nacholibre]

I can't believe it's time to start thinking about this already, but I'm in the 2nd half of 3rd year and as job offers begin to come in a more steady flow, I'm starting to think about what I want to do with my life and where I want to do it.

I am coming out of a program which will have trained me exceptionally well and I am confident that I will be quite comfortable with almost any of the cases that an ENT could potentially do. Outside of the obvious things (neurootology and free flaps), I am hoping to pretty much do it all (with ablative H&N + pedicled flaps, big otology cases, all peds minus airway recon and CI at the top of the list).

I realize that many factors exist which will limit my ability to do all of these things (standard of care = fellowship trained, cost inefficiency, lower production, etc). Furthermore, I understand that you make some concessions in the lifestyle department which I understand and accept. That being said, I have my heart set on trying to find a situation that will allow me to practice as a very aggressive general ENT.

I would love your thoughts on wether or not this remains a realistic expectation in the private practice world (to which I have had no exposure), on how and where to find a practice opportunity like this, about what pros/cons I may not be anticipating, etc.

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[drdoctor]

very realistic expectation in private practice. Pretty much every state in the US has this opportunity. Just have to narrow down a couple of geographical regions, contact group practices and interview with them. The biggest thing is talking to the other partners and finding out what cases they do. I know of several groups where they do big head/neck cases, mastoids/OCR (which overall is not that common in the community). Alot of peds gets shipped to a children's hospital not just because of ENT, but because of other services being available for syndromic kids, etc. Also complex peds can require inpatient work, ancillary staff, speech/swallow, etc. So not as common to do this in general. Head and neck is not a problem to find. There's plenty of sinus/laryngeal stuff too if you market yourself.