Compensation down?

[gulmohr]

I did my fellowship at WashU several years ago. Great learning experience, horrible work/life balance. Not sure if anything changed, but it was worse than my surgery intern year.

As someone who has been out for awhile, I caution against doing an ICU fellowship unless you truly hate the OR. The anesthesia job market is on rocket fire while the ICU market is in the dumps. I don’t see the Intensivist market getting better- too many ER-ICU trained physicians in the pipeline.

As a new critical care attending, this is depressing to read.

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[grt398]

The locums CC market has collapsed quite a bit as well and I know of attendings who went back to take a full time job somewhere b/c they weren't able to maintain a full enough locums schedule. Maybe it'll come back, but for IM background people at least, I would argue this is even more of an argument to go the PCCM route if you were considering not doing so.

 

[psychbender]

My place recently signed two of our locums guys to FT work, as they were also noting that the locums market was not as lucrative, or that the required workload for the money was greater than the wanted in many places. We only average 8-12 patients per day, per physician here, and some of them were being asked to see 20-30 per day at other locations, for a rate not much more than what we pay for full time.

 

[SurfingDoctor]

 

[Tipsy McStagger]

My place recently signed two of our locums guys to FT work, as they were also noting that the locums market was not as lucrative, or that the required workload for the money was greater than the wanted in many places. We only average 8-12 patients per day, per physician here, and some of them were being asked to see 20-30 per day at other locations, for a rate not much more than what we pay for full time.

Oof. 20-30? No way that’s safe

 

[gulmohr]

Oof. 20-30? No way that’s safe

That is insane.

 

[Siggy]

Oof. 20-30? No way that’s safe

It is depending on how many NPs... according to my boss...

 

[psychbender]

I did locums once at an HCA hospital. They had me cover two ICUs, with an average total census of about 24. No NP or PA to help. One of my colleagues here worked full time at another HCA hospital, and regularly had an ICU/ consult list of over 30. That's largely the reason he came to us.

 

[Tipsy McStagger]

Man, I'm so lucky I have a good job. I pray those people (if you can call them that) never buy out my hospital. I'd have to leave.