Relocation as a neuropsychologist

[neuro_gurl_for_life]

I am posing this question in hopes for some opinions from anyone currently working as a neuropsychologist, or anyone with first-hand advice that may be useful to my dilemma:

I am wondering about what the mobility is like as a neuropsychologist. My partner is in the military, and on his current career trajectory, he would likely be relocated every four or so years before landing in one location. He is in his mid-thirties already, so I don't anticipate more than 3ish moves throughout our careers at this point. Is it possible to move a few times as a neuropsychologist? Most neuropsychologists that I know have stayed either at one hospital or worked as a professor at one university for many years, so I want to know if that is what everyone does or if I am just seeing a biased sample.

Just some relevant background about me: I am not expecting moving/getting new state licensure/etc. to be easy, I just want to know if it is doable (or not). I am interested in clinical work rather than research, am willing to work in different settings (hospitals, VAs, etc.), and am getting trained as adult/lifespan at this point. I love moving/adventure/seeing new parts of the country, so I have no reservations about that aspect of the lifestyle. And we would be okay with spending the occasional year apart throughout our lives to make it work if necessary. I just want to know if it is possible to succeed if I have to relocate a few times throughout my career rather than stay in one location for my entire career, or if that is just not doable with this career path.

Please let me know if you have any experience with relocating as this type of professional, know others who have successfully moved more than once, or have advice or helpful thoughts! Thanks.

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[Therapist4Chnge]

I would argue it is one of the most portable specialities within the field. It’s not as easy to find a job as a nurse, NP, or psychiatrist...but it’s still pretty good if you have some flexibility.

Academic positions and VA positions can be a bit more limited, depending on the region of the country, but not always. If you elect private practice (the most common position IIRC from Jerry Sweet’s semi-annual job survey data), it can work well.

It’d be easiest to join an existing practice, whether it be with other neuropsychologists or a physician practice. Chiro can work too, but choose carefully because there are a lot of bad ones out there.

Getting boarded typically helps too. Peds tends to be in HIGH demand basically everywhere. In my last city (Top 20) the public hospital had a 12-13mon waitlist and the private pay/practice wait times were easily 6mon for the fellowship trained clinicians.

Networking helps speed up the process, but if you have a halfway decent CV (and in some places it doesn’t matter), physicians will often refer to you if you can see their patients in a month or less for adults.

 

[WisNeuro]

Depends. You can usually get a job somewhere, if you're willing to settle. If you want a good job, you may have to wait in some markets if they are semi-saturated. I knew I wanted to come back to a certain area from where I was living and it took about 9 months before something that I'd be willing to accept opened up. There were jobs open before that, but they would have paid about 20% less.

As T4C said, having a good CV helps. As does being boarded.