Career advice

[ravenspac]

I'm looking to get into UC with a hospital system with a MD on at all times or ED.

I worked in Correctional Medicine 1 year right out of school because I needed to pay back loans ASAP, and I was Naive enough to believe the company when they said "all of our providers qualify for federal loan repayment"... Fast forward of course I wasnt selected.

 

I took a job at a very well known academic hospital because ...well they offered what my parents, and family said I should look for (none of them ever had careers, just jobs trying to make the best of bad situations).... Good benefits, stable employement, free cme, license fees etc. I've been here 5 years in a sub specialty of oncology, and I miss medicine. I'm not intellectually challanged here. They wont increase pay to median for my job (Salary in this state sucks), and their response to my boredom is more busy work, not actual patient care.

 

I had an interview with a competing hospital CEO and director. It went amazing for a UC job, but when I met with an actual MD who worked in the clinic, he busted out the...well you dont have any real recent experience, you should probably pick up some extra work to beef up your resume.  I know I wasnt going to get the job at that point.

 

The idea of occasional work at a ED or UC sounds easy enough, except they dont exist within 1 hour of here, and I already work 50+ hours a week as it is.

 

I'm debating on switching to Primary care or Ortho and springboarding to ED or UC but I dont really know what to do. I feel pigeon holed right now 

[sas5814]

One man's opinion but I think the broad experience of primary care would translate to UC better than ortho. We do see a lot of falls, fractures, and dislocations but in the grand scheme they are a fairly small percentage of out patients.

We just had a PA get fired for mismanaging a simple problem in a complex patient. He came to us with 4 years of ortho experience only. I'm not quite sure why they hired him in the first place. Great guy and I liked working with him but he just didn't have the experience for this job. It is lots of mundane stuff with the occasional really bad thing stuck in the middle. Some of it is easy (I'm having chest pain. Have you ever been in an ambulance before?) and some of it can be missed if you aren't looking for it. Missing stuff is bad....

My afore mentioned colleague gave an NSAID to somebody in stage 4 kidney failure and 2 weeks earlier missed a pulse of 152 on a patient that presented with sinus symptoms. He was later found to be in new onset afib.

The devil is in the details.

[mgriffiths]

15 minutes ago, sas5814 said:

One man's opinion but I think the broad experience of primary care would translate to UC better than ortho.

Two men's opinions...

My first job was ortho.  I now work family medicine.  I can say that I clearly understand why every single one of my PA school profs recommend every student start in primary care.  I don't know if I'll stay in FM forever, or even primary care...I do miss some aspects of ortho...BUT, definitely patient stuff that I look for without even thinking about it that I had to be much more intentional of when I first transitioned from ortho to FM.

 

P.S. It also often takes sacrifice to move to a better situation.  I went without pay for 6 weeks as I transitioned from ortho to family medicine waiting for my licensing to transfer states.  I "shadowed" seeing patients those 6 weeks, but because I was not licensed everything I did had to be "redone" for it to be legal and billable.  It sucked financially, but that time also primed me to hit the ground running though once I was actually licensed in my state and could start seeing patients on my own.

[ravenspac]

46 minutes ago, mgriffiths said:

Two men's opinions...

My first job was ortho.  I now work family medicine.  I can say that I clearly understand why every single one of my PA school profs recommend every student start in primary care.  I don't know if I'll stay in FM forever, or even primary care...I do miss some aspects of ortho...BUT, definitely patient stuff that I look for without even thinking about it that I had to be much more intentional of when I first transitioned from ortho to FM.

 

P.S. It also often takes sacrifice to move to a better situation.  I went without pay for 6 weeks as I transitioned from ortho to family medicine waiting for my licensing to transfer states.  I "shadowed" seeing patients those 6 weeks, but because I was not licensed everything I did had to be "redone" for it to be legal and billable.  It sucked financially, but that time also primed me to hit the ground running though once I was actually licensed in my state and could start seeing patients on my own.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. There are a few family practice jobs but not many. Long term I'd like to get into a job that is 3-4 days a week. With both of us working M-F in medicine we're never home and cant raise a family

[sas5814]

if you can get your foot in the door in UC it tends to be a better place to try and have a family life. Most have 12 hour shifts which translates into fewer days a week. We used to work 3 12's a week then our company got a "strategic partner". Don't get me started.....

[mgriffiths]

I currently work 4 days per week in FM - 9 hour days.  This was a recent switch, but it's great.  I've considered transitioning to ED or UC, but hate the idea of having to work over the weekends on a more regular basis (currently work a Saturday morning about every 6-7 weeks), and basically not home for anything for 3 days, while now I am out the door and on my way home at 5-5:15pm.