Round and Go

[SuckySurgeon7]

1. How common are the hospitalist jobs that allow one to round on patients in the morning, finish your notes, and then leave for the day? Are they more common at academic centers/larger hospitals?

2. Does it usually entail a pay cut?

3. Are there a lot of variations, such as taking call from home until 7 PM, having to be present for codes until 4 PM, etc.?

4. Can you ask for this during negotiations, even if they're advertising a 7A-7P job, and how likely would you be to get it?

Thanks.

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[rokshana]

1. How common are the hospitalist jobs that allow one to round on patients in the morning, finish your notes, and then leave for the day? Are they more common at academic centers/larger hospitals?

2. Does it usually entail a pay cut?

3. Are there a lot of variations, such as taking call from home until 7 PM, having to be present for codes until 4 PM, etc.?

4. Can you ask for this during negotiations, even if they're advertising a 7A-7P job, and how likely would you be to get it?

Thanks.

in the smaller community hospitals this is fairly common...and yes you usually have to keep your pager/phone on and be available until the end of your shift.

 

[jacksparrow82]

1. How common are the hospitalist jobs that allow one to round on patients in the morning, finish your notes, and then leave for the day? Are they more common at academic centers/larger hospitals?

2. Does it usually entail a pay cut?

3. Are there a lot of variations, such as taking call from home until 7 PM, having to be present for codes until 4 PM, etc.?

4. Can you ask for this during negotiations, even if they're advertising a 7A-7P job, and how likely would you be to get it?

Thanks.

1. I don't know how common it is, but it's how our group has always operated
2. No
3. You have to be available by phone for your own patients. There should be someone from your group available at the hospital at all times to take new admits and sometimes respond to codes (depends on the institution, but at ours, we don't run codes). In other words, you all have to take turns. There will be days when you're just a rounder and days when you're on call, which means you'd have to stay. Depending on the size of the group, this may not be all that often or it may be as frequent as every other day. You need to ask about this stuff specifically when you interview. The downside to this is that the less you are on call yourself, the more patients you will be rounding on who you didn't admit, which means you won't know them as well. This can be quite stressful and demoralizing in my experience. I used to work for a group where I only had to take call once or twice during a week long block and I hated it. Now I'm working at a place where I'm on call at least every other day and I like it a lot more. I feel like I actually know my patients and come discharge time, it's not that difficult to figure out what happened during their entire stay.
4. Yes, you must ask about these things when interviewing and factor them in to the overall decision. Each group is run differently. The smaller, privately owned groups are more likely to operate in a favorable manner like this IMO. The bigger, corporate backed groups (think Team Health), will probably stick to a more rigid 7-7 schedule and not allow you to leave early.