PA jobs in San Diego

[ropeman500]

Hi,

 

I am a recent new PA grad moving to the San Diego area. I was looking for a job. Any help in terms of websites or organizations to search for jobs would be great. Also, any advice regarding the job market in San Diego would be very helpful.

 

Thanks,

 

Rob

[LESH]

CAPA members can get a job listing-you might consider joining. There is a local group of PAs in San Diego (you can get a link from the CAPA WEB) good resource for networking. Here's a useful link from USC's program. http://keck.usc.edu/en/Education/Academic_Department_and_Divisions/Physician_Assistant_Program/Employment.aspx. Good luck

[lizchao74]

I am currently a PA in Boston with 6 years of experience, and am pretty certain that I want to move to San Diego in the next year/year and a half. I have been looking at the different job boards on the internet, and also looked up all the hospitals in the SD area and checked out their websites, but found almost no PA jobs (or NP jobs, for that matter). I became a member of CAPA to become familiar with issues related to PA practice in CA as well as to have access to their job boards, and again, I have seen very few jobs in the San Diego area, but several more further north. Can anyone comment as to why I am seeing this?

 

I am hypothesizing that perhaps there is a short-term dry spell, or that because I have only been looking for a short period of time (for the last month), that the appearance of a dry spell will eventually disappear the longer I look around (i.e., that the expanded time period will yield a larger sample, statistically speaking). However, I am also curious as to whether there is some other force at play, i.e., is there something that is "known" in the state amongst California PAs about finding jobs in this area, i.e., is it notorious for PA jobs being difficult to locate in SD? I have done some research as to San Diego in general on other city-related boards, and the comments I have frequently found are that SD has fewer jobs as compared with LA or San Francisco, but those analyses seem to be more related to other types of work.

 

I would be interested in a hospital-based position in Surgery (General, Vascular, Thoracic, Cardiac, or ?Urology), Critical Care or possibly Emergency Medicine. My experience is as follows (all in the Boston area):

 

-Cardiothoracic Surgery (4 months):

At a large, academic "safety net" urban hospital; left after 4 months because of very poor supervision/backup from surgeons, abusive environment, 80h workweek, and concern for liability with poor support from attendings, in settings where high census of very sick patients (20+ daily) were left in the hands of a single new grad PA with attending surgeons flat out professing their view of PAs *not belonging* in CT surgery and insulting me at the bedside.

 

-Internal Medicine locums (2 months):

At an urban clinic for local community hospital.

 

-Anesthesia (1yr, 3 months):

At a small community hospital in northeastern Mass, employed by the private anesthesia practice servicing the hospital. Practice eventually dissolved due to financial troubles; I left when things started getting bad.

 

-Emergency Medicine (per diem, 2 years):

At an urban community hospital for 2 years (the one affiliated with the clinic where I did Internal Medicine locums), concurrent with my full time Anesthesia position.

 

-Cardiac Surgery (2 yrs):

At a large, prestigious academic institution (unfortunately without OR or ICU experience; step-down unit only).

 

-General Surgery (per diem, 2 years):

Switched to Gen Surg service at same urban community hospital where I was working per diem in EM, covering a different campus of the same hospital which was closer to home. Covered gen surg/vascular/thoracic/urology patients/consults, 1st assist in OR.

 

-Vascular Surgery (1 yr):

Switched to different position at same institution as Cardiac Surgery job.

 

-General Surgery (1 year and counting):

Transitioned from per diem to fulltime, but based at the larger of the two campuses of the hospital organization. Working full time, nights. Am the only one in house for Surgery at night; moonlighter resident coverage on my off nights. Covering gen surg/vascular/thoracic/urology patients/consults, inpt management, occasional 1st assist in OR overnight for appys, choles, and 2nd assist for bigger overnight cases (emergent xlaps for SBO, etc.); surgical resident from neighboring large teaching hospital is 1st assist for the bigger cases. Also now caring for SICU patients.

 

-ICU per diem: just accepted offer for this position today and awaiting credentialing. Will be at a large community hospital south of Boston (18 bed ICU, covering mostly MICU pts).

 

I am also fluent in Spanish, and speak French and Portuguese. I think I'd make a pretty competitive candidate, but again, need to know more about the dynamics at play in the San Diego area.

 

Any thoughts on how feasible it might be to find something comparable to what I've had in the past given what I've listed above?

 

Thanks so much for your help (and sorry for the long post).

 

Lissette

[marilynpac]

You're right. I went to indeed.com and was surprised how few job openings there are for midlevel there. Area must be saturated already.

[Zeus]

You're right. I went to indeed.com and was surprised how few job openings there are for midlevel there. Area must be saturated already.

 

Yeah there are alot of PA programs in that area and as in most cases, specialty jobs a pretty tough to find without experience. I had a good friend that moved down there right after grad and had to cold call clinics and do the clinic to clinic resume drop, eventually found a job after a couple of months and is very happy with it. So miracles happen ;)

 

@Lissette

After looking at your post, it is obivious that you have some experience in a wide array of fields. Spanish is huge down in that area, lived down there for 6 years (not working as a PA). From what i have heard and know, most of the jobs i have heard being available are in a clinic or urgent care. I am sure that hospital jobs will pop up and if your interested in ER PM me and i can get you in contact with someone who might be able to get you in contact with someone to aid your search. Thanks for your CAPA membership :wink:

[cbrsmurf]

Yea SD, seems like a strange location. There are no PA schools south of LA, so you would think that demand would be greater than supply in Orange County and San Diego. I've met some PAs in SD, however. I know UCSD medical employs PAs as well as the VA's and Navy hospitals. Kaiser in OC/LA employ PAs. Not sure about Scripps (which is a large hospital org) in SD.

[macadamia813]

Scripps has PAs...they don't always advertise for positions because they hire internally or through direct references