Question about difficulty in finding career opportunities after residency

[CaptainJackSparrow83]

Hi guys,
I used to be a DO student, didnt go too far before changing careers.
A friend of mine (MD student at Stanford), and a financial analyst, as well as my self (Software developer) were having a discussion on job relocation and maintaining a salary

None of us ever thought to actually ask about how hard it is to get a job after(not sure if it has crossed your minds either yet)
I.E as a software engineer if I want to continue making big money I would have to stay in the west coast , the financial analyst would have to stay here or NY. The doctor could move around quite a bit

With respect to major cities only (Doesnt have to be huge [Miami, Austin, Minneapolis, Portland, Denver, Phoenix, Detroit, Atlanta , Cleveland, etc) How difficult is relocation for a practicing physician? Im guessing it probably depends on medical school/residency and specialty.
Lets just hand pick an average Joe who went to a community residency program, went to a mid tier DO school, and did something like Internal Medicine. If he/she/they wanted to move to any select city in the US would there be a lot of difficulty?

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[Frogger27]

Hi guys,
I used to be a DO student, didnt go too far before changing careers.
A friend of mine (MD student at Stanford), and a financial analyst, as well as my self (Software developer) were having a discussion on job relocation and maintaining a salary

None of us ever thought to actually ask about how hard it is to get a job after(not sure if it has crossed your minds either yet)
I.E as a software engineer if I want to continue making big money I would have to stay in the west coast , the financial analyst would have to stay here or NY. The doctor could move around quite a bit

With respect to major cities only (Doesnt have to be huge [Miami, Austin, Minneapolis, Portland, Denver, Phoenix, Detroit, Atlanta , Cleveland, etc) How difficult is relocation for a practicing physician? Im guessing it probably depends on medical school/residency and specialty.
Lets just hand pick an average Joe who went to a community residency program, went to a mid tier DO school, and did something like Internal Medicine. If he/she/they wanted to move to any select city in the US would there be a lot of difficulty?

From my understanding it is pretty easy. Now if it is a "good" job that fits all people needs (mainly location, pay and lifestyle), that's a different question.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Location, pay, lifestyle. Pick 2 out of the 3. That's a decent rule for pretty much any doc. Doctors easily have the most flexibility in terms of location choice.

 

[Bacchus]

The primary care specialties have no difficulty moving around.

 

[sloh]

Specialty dependent. Ie. FM, Psychiatry, EM, IM generally are not limited by geography. I'm PM&R; not as many opportunities for saturated cities like LA and SF but they are out there.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

If you own a private practice it’s much harder to move around. In PP you’ve usually built up a referall base wherever you are, have a bunch of regular patients, staff you’ve trained to do things your way, etc.

As an employee doctor I think it’s remarkably easy - give your 2 weeks notice and you could find a decent (not stellar) job in most medium sized cities before you arrive.

A neighbor/mentor of mine always jokes that if he quit his job at noon he could have a new job “anywhere in the country” before he got home from work that day.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

If you own a private practice it’s much harder to move around. In PP you’ve usually built up a referall base wherever you are, have a bunch of regular patients, staff you’ve trained to do things your way, etc.

As an employee doctor I think it’s remarkably easy - give your 2 weeks notice and you could find a decent (not stellar) job in most medium sized cities before you arrive.

A neighbor/mentor of mine always jokes that if he quit his job at noon he could have a new job “anywhere in the country” before he got home from work that day.

I dont necessarily agree. If you are an employed doctor..AND.. you dont own a house you now must sell, dont have a wife/SO with family in the area, and dont have children in school with friends, you most certainly can pick up and accept another position quickly. If not, it gets complicated. Medical networks realize this and take advantage of these obstacles as they adjust your contract over time.
Also agree completely with @AnatomyGrey12 . I have given the same advice to residents for years. Where do you want to live? How do you want to live? These are the 2 questions you must honestly answer first .

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

I dont necessarily agree. If you are an employed doctor..AND.. you dont own a house you now must sell, dont have a wife/SO with family in the area, and dont have children in school with friends, you most certainly can pick up and accept another position quickly. If not, it gets complicated. Medical networks realize this and take advantage of these obstacles as they adjust your contract over time.
Also agree completely with @AnatomyGrey12 . I have given the same advice to residents for years. Where do you want to live? How do you want to live? These are the 2 questions you must honestly answer first .

Yea obviously uprooting your life is a huge PITA but that’s not unique to medicine - everyone deals with these problems.

Doctors have it easier than most though. We don’t have state restricted liscenses like law, we don’t have regional limitations like finance & tech, and we have the luxury of having a universally in demand skill set (except for a few specialities).

OP describes a generic community IM doc - family and lifestyle may be problems for that person, but getting a job is something that should never be.

 

[nimbus]

Yea obviously uprooting your life is a huge PITA but that’s not unique to medicine - everyone deals with these problems.

Doctors have it easier than most though. We don’t have state restricted liscenses like law, we don’t have regional limitations like finance & tech, and we have the luxury of having a universally in demand skill set (except for a few specialities).

OP describes a generic community IM doc - family and lifestyle may be problems for that person, but getting a job is something that should never be.

Licensing can be a slow PITA in some states.

 

[CaptainJackSparrow83]

Yea obviously uprooting your life is a huge PITA but that’s not unique to medicine - everyone deals with these problems.

Doctors have it easier than most though. We don’t have state restricted liscenses like law, we don’t have regional limitations like finance & tech, and we have the luxury of having a universally in demand skill set (except for a few specialities).

OP describes a generic community IM doc - family and lifestyle may be problems for that person, but getting a job is something that should never be.

Thanks for reiterating this point, as well as everyone elses response,and sorry for getting back to it so late.
Yeah moving, selling homes, uprooting family is common for all professions lol. I know some of the guys in tech seem like code monkeys to the public but they do have families.

Anyway, I was primarily interested in general IM community as you said, how easy it would be to relocate.

Have a happy halloween guys

 

[Raryn]

I think it's very specialty dependent.

On one extreme you have someone without their own patient panel who is in a field that is in demand - EM, anesthesia, hospital medicine. To a lesser extent critical care (they often have their own pulmonary clinic). These are folks who can up and leave any time, find a job anywhere in the country within a few weeks, and can immediately start at full steam.

At the other extreme is a surgical subspecialist who has lots of specialized equipment and needs a large referral base. While they can often get jobs anywhere, for their first couple years they often need a subsidy from their hospital while they're still building up a practice. Switch jobs too often and the hospital will look at you funny.

Most of us are somewhere in between. A primary care physician or a medical subspecialist (like an endocrinologist) can go anywhere - but for the first year or so of practice is still often building up. Seeing nothing but new patients is annoying - so it's better to stay for a few years.

A pathologist or radiologist has no build up and no need to build up a panel - but also a fairly tight job market. (Though rads is getting a bit better).

Etc.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Anyway, I was primarily interested in general IM community as you said, how easy it would be to relocate.

Very easy.