What’s your New Year’s resolution? Whatever goals you want to tackle in 2024, locum tenens can help.
The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to reflect on where you are, where you want to go, and how to get there. Whether you want to earn more income, make a career change, grow your practice, travel, or give back to your community, there are so many locum tenens benefits that can help you meet your goals.
Here are some ways to meet your New Year’s resolutions through locum tenens:
Resolution #1: Meet Your Financial Goals
Whether you want to make more, save more, or pay down debt, locum tenens can help you get there.
Locum tenens pay rates tend to be higher than full-time hospital positions, first because locums physicians are usually filling a pressing need for hospitals, and secondly, the higher rates make up for the lack of benefits and consistent monthly income.
But it’s not just full-time locum tenens physicians who can make more; providers who already have a full-time job can also meet their financial goals by taking on occasional weekend shifts, or holiday assignments (which have the benefit of paying at time and a half).
Whether you want to finally pay down medical school debt, or save up for a big expense, like a kid going to college, or buying a house, locum tenens can help you meet your financial goals faster.
“I was looking for something lucrative that would allow me the space and the time and energy to work on starting a private practice as well. That’s why I initially decided to go into locums: to make enough income to allow me to leave my permanent job while still leaving room to build my practice.”
–Dr. Oneica Poole, Hayes Locums Physician
Resolution #2: Travel More
For many physicians, they want to take time off and travel, to see new parts of the country. But full-time practice can make that difficult. Taking on travel medical jobs can help you meet your travel goals, while still earning a good income.
If you’re early in your career and aren’t sure yet where you want to settle, taking on travel medical jobs can help you try different areas on for size to find an environment where you can thrive. If you already have a home base, but want to see more of the country, locum tenens assignments are a great excuse to travel to new places. You can make a vacation out of an assignment by exploring a new city on your off hours, or by scheduling some time off before or after your assignment. Or, you can look for assignments in places you’ve always wanted to visit.
Wherever you want to go, locum tenens can help you get there.
“Honestly, I would work locums exclusively purely for the opportunity to travel. Travel has always appealed to me, and I’m really grateful for the opportunity to do more of it through locum tenens.” –Philip Newman, Hayes Locums NP
Resolution #3: Grow Your Clinical Practice
If you’re feeling stagnant in your current role, there are so many ways that the locum tenens experience can help you grow as a physician. One of the major benefits of locum tenens is in helping you expand your skill set by practicing in different environments.
If you’ve been practicing in an urban hospital with lots of resources, working in a smaller rural hospital can help you learn how other teams handle cases with fewer tools or older technology. Through working with different medical teams, you can also learn different methods and techniques to take back to your practice––and vice versa! Many military physicians find practicing locum tenens to be a helpful way of gaining experience for their post-military career, by working in a civilian environment and expanding their professional network.
Whatever your career goals, the locum tenens experience can help you grow as a physician.
“Locums is helping expand my view of medicine. You get to see variability in how things are done: how the clinic is run, their staff makeup, different kinds of scopes, microscopes, and equipment. Locums can help you make connections, but it can also help you figure out what you actually want to do: how you want to run a practice, what are the right questions to ask.”
–Dr. Aurora Vincent, Hayes Locums Physician
Resolution #4: Give Back
It’s no secret that the healthcare provider shortage has made access to quality care much more difficult, especially for patients in under-resourced communities. Locum tenens can be a great way to give back, by bringing your skills to the communities who need it most.
Locums physicians bring needed expertise and training to communities who may not have the resources to staff the kinds of specialists that are common in big cities. In rural environments, the presence of a locum physician can sometimes be the difference between whether a patient is able to receive immediate care, or has to travel hundreds of miles to the next closest hospital.
Locum tenens can help you make a difference, by ensuring that people across the country have access to quality care.
“Locums is a great way to feel like you’re doing work that matters. Because these are places that really need a doctor. There’s a need for doctors everywhere, [but in big cities], you have a bunch of choices. In a lot of other places, patients might have been on the waitlist for months, and they are so grateful to be taken care of.”
–Dr. Fenwa Milhouse, Hayes Locums Physician
Resolution #5: Make a Change
If you’re a physician ready for a career change, locum tenens can help you make the transition. Whether you’re feeling burnt out from your full-time job, or you want to start a new practice, locum tenens can be the bridge that helps you get to the next stage of your career.
For doctors nearing retirement age who aren’t quite ready to leave medical practice, locums offers a way of slowing down without stopping entirely. For physicians who are feeling burnt out, shifting to full-time locums gives them greater control over their time, while still earning the income they need. If you’re ready to get a break from the administrative work associated with full-time employment, locums allows you to focus more time on the reason you got into medicine––taking care of and connecting with patients.
It can also be a great way of continuing to practice while you’re setting up for a career shift. Many doctors who want to transition to private practice use locums as a way to continue earning income while they build up their practice, until they can transition to full-time private practice.
No matter the reason, if you’re ready to make a career change as a physician , locum tenens can help.
“I really feel that locums has made me a better person. That’s been one of the unexpected benefits of working the locums lifestyle: I look forward to going to work every day. Locums is the perfect remedy for physician burnout. You can still be a doctor, but you’re not undergoing stresses that we were never trained to deal with. You can actually enjoy the practice of medicine.”
–Dr. Peter Zonakis, Hayes Locums Physician
