Locums FM / Occ med provider considering PRN Hospitalist. Thoughts?

[mcambron]

I am interviewing for a 1099 PRN hospitalist position soon and would like thoughts from experienced hospitalist.

I graduated in 2015 and have worked primary care and UC positions the first few years, but primarily have worked family medicine & occ med locums for the last few years. I didn't have any inpatient rotations other than rounding on surgical patients during my surgery rotations.

The position I'm looking at is 2.5 hours away from where I live, but I'm considering it because one of my best friends is a hospitalist there and has assured me they have a very good onboarding / training  program with slow progression of # of pts seen. It's days and mostly doing admits.

I think this could be a great opportunity to learn another area of medicine and I would love to get some hospitalist experience so that I can have more flexibility in types of locums jobs I can take in the future. There are some reasonable housing options for when I'm there working.

My plan would be to actually live in the other city for 4 months or so, working 4-5 (12hr) shifts per week during those months (assuming they have availability which they currently do). Then I would probably work about 1 week per month after that based on their need. 

My main questions are:

Do you think the 4 months of training/working is enough to get a decent amount of experience so that I can cut back to PRN at one week a month or so and not struggle too much? In other words, is 4 months enough time to get my feet solidly under me with no real previous hospital experience?

What is a reasonable hourly rate? It will be in Texas working 1099 and I doubt there will be any benefits. I currently usually make about $70/hr 1099. I understand that they will be having to incur costs by training me, but I will definitely be incurring some costs by working in the other city. I don't want to go in requesting an unreasonable amount, but I want to get all I can, of course.

Finally, any specific questions I should be asking in the interview besides exactly what are the expectations as far as #of admits, cross coverage, and procedures?

I appreciate any feedback!