It is staggering to think of how different my life is now from less than 3 months ago- climate, scenery, hours of daylight, transportation, activities, and occupation. The most common question asked remains "where are you from?" and my answer now is still as confusing as it was before. At least some things stay the same.
This year I'm working as a locum tenens. The phrase is taken from Latin meaning "to hold the place of" and the closest thing I can compare it to for non-medical people is like substitute teaching. Many hospitals in Alaska and rural areas elsewhere need short-term coverage when their physicians are on vacation or while they have a staffing shortage due to inability to recruit full-time doctors. Once you get outside of the largest city (Anchorage) in Alaska, the turn over of physicians in rural practice is high and many places are difficult to move a family to, or to live in full time. This creates a need for people who can fill in those gaps in coverage.
The benefits for hospitals are they don't have to provide me with benefits and they get an Alaskan licensed physician who can cover many different areas in the hospital.
The benefits of locums for me is flexibility- I set my own schedule, variety- I'm working all over the state in hospitals from small to large, and a chance to check out different practice settings before committing to something full time. Each hospital provides me with a place to stay while I am working there, and pays me hourly/per shift. This does mean I am essentially living out of the back of my car- nothing like regressing to homelessness to keep you humble.
So far I'm signed up for shifts in 5 different towns, all within Alaska, in everything ranging from clinic to emergency to obstetrics to inpatient medicine. I am on a constant learning curve, but getting to see new places, slowly learn new systems, and have time off to travel, see friends, and get to know my home state again!
This year I'm working as a locum tenens. The phrase is taken from Latin meaning "to hold the place of" and the closest thing I can compare it to for non-medical people is like substitute teaching. Many hospitals in Alaska and rural areas elsewhere need short-term coverage when their physicians are on vacation or while they have a staffing shortage due to inability to recruit full-time doctors. Once you get outside of the largest city (Anchorage) in Alaska, the turn over of physicians in rural practice is high and many places are difficult to move a family to, or to live in full time. This creates a need for people who can fill in those gaps in coverage.
The benefits for hospitals are they don't have to provide me with benefits and they get an Alaskan licensed physician who can cover many different areas in the hospital.
The benefits of locums for me is flexibility- I set my own schedule, variety- I'm working all over the state in hospitals from small to large, and a chance to check out different practice settings before committing to something full time. Each hospital provides me with a place to stay while I am working there, and pays me hourly/per shift. This does mean I am essentially living out of the back of my car- nothing like regressing to homelessness to keep you humble.
So far I'm signed up for shifts in 5 different towns, all within Alaska, in everything ranging from clinic to emergency to obstetrics to inpatient medicine. I am on a constant learning curve, but getting to see new places, slowly learn new systems, and have time off to travel, see friends, and get to know my home state again!
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