Life after fellowship... the interview process

My husband is doing a one year fellowship in Colo-Rectal Surgery and will graduate in June 2005. He is talking to several different recruiters and will begin interviewing shortly after the written boards in Oct. Does anyone have any advice on the interviewing process, contracts and what to look out for. Several attendings have told my husband to be very careful what group he joins and to really look at the contracts carefully. If anyone is going through or has gone through this process your advice would be greatly appreciated.

I think there might be some posts re: recruiters in the last few months, probably in this forum.
Regarding the contract, I think it would be reasonable to have an attorney familiar with employment contracts review it if there is anything questionable. Even if there isn't anything questionable it might be good for peace of mind. If the contract includes different types of compensation, like paying loans, you might want to have an accountant look at it so you are clear on what your tax liabilities would be.

We don't personally know of anyone who has been screwed in the contracts. But I do know that people are flinchy about it. A friend of ours started getting really worried when his practice was taking a long time to draw up the partner papers (turns out the attorney was taking his sweet time and new partner was much more aware of and anxious about the delays than the existing partners). In that case, I think he did ask for a few slight changes re: buying into the practice and they were ok with that. I know that the contracts people have been offered differ from practice to practice and some are clearly better than others.

One of the shady things I have heard of...but never seen firsthand....is a practice that requires a very high level of productivity from incoming drs to make partner. Once the trial period (usually a few years is up), they come up with some reason of why the person can't make partner. The intention is to never take the employee as a partner -- it's sort of a scam to get cheap(er) labor out of recently graduated residents and to distribute the extra income from the high productivity to existing partners. Again, I don't know of anyone that has happened to but I've heard about -- may just be an urban legend.

[Amiens]

We are going through the interview process now for anesthesia. My dh will be done June 2005 as well, and his goal is to have a contract or be close to signing one by Feb 2005.

About contracts, I second what NMH says. It has been highly suggested that when a contract is drawn up to take it to a contract lawyer, and have then go over to ensure there are no "loop-holes" for the partners to get around things in the contract. Matt's uncle does contracts, and so we are going to have him review any contract in great detail for us.

My dh found a couple things out about working with a recruiter. There are pluses and minues. One downside is the "group" has to pay a fee to the recruiter if someone is hired through the recruiting firm. However, if someone is found outside of the recruiting firm that fee does not have to be paid. He thinks that the group would favor a non-recruited candidate over someone a recruited candidate. It's about $20,000-$30,000 a fee that these groups pay to recruiting firms. Also sometimes recruiters mass mail CVs.

Dh has a list of questions a resident should ask about a practice- it's anesthesia-based, but I am sure you could tailor it to whatever specialty. He has been reviewing those questions and making sure to ask them when he meets with prospective groups. He hasn't had a formal interview yet, so I can't tell you what types of questioned are asked. One thing we are finding helpful in searching out groups, is seeing where the group members either went to medical school, or went for residency. Dh's dept has a list of alumni and their addresse/phone numbers. One of the groups we are interested in has 2 physicians who either attended CU-Health Sciences for medical school and/or did a residency/fellowship at Univ WA. Dh says this way those alumni physicians know the type of training you are receiving or have received, and know about your medical training background.

Hope this helped!

If you want those questions- let me know it's 7 pages long, so I would probably email it, unless several people asked me to post it.

Crystal

[mommax3]

My husband (an OB/Gyn) is due to get out of the Air Force in June 2005 and is getting ready to sign a contract with a group. He first interviewed with them in May, and we returned last week from a second visit with them. He interviewed with several practices in May.....the one he is going with was found through a recruiter, and the others were word-of-mouth type things. He was really surprised at how easily he was able to pick up the "vibe" of the practice, and the job he is going to take was a clear winner very early on. He is going to have a lawyer look at his contract before he signs, and he has already questioned some little things in it that the practice has either clarified or changed.

I think the biggest thing to do in preparation for the whole process is for your husband to identify as much about the situation he is looking for as he can.....this will really help rule out places that won't be a good fit.

Good luck!

Sally

[Sheherezade]

Ditto to everything said already. My two cents:

My DH just started his new job post-fellowship. It is working out great, but the only problem we have encountered is one we have heard about from many others of this "generation" of docs in his specialty (gyn-onc). He has had trouble getting enough block time in the OR to accomodate his surgeries without making him scramble his schedule (late nights/early mornings/erratic times...). This was also a problem for two other young docs in surgery specialties we know. It seems that if you don't have "blocked" OR time and you are low man on the totem pole, you just get the time that is left over to operate. That can make a big lifestyle difference. In a surgical specialty, I'd see how that is handled. Also, he was presented with covering multiple sites for clinics/surgeries involving travel time between institutions at almost every job he considered. That is something else to consider -- sometimes the travel/inconvenience is significant. Good luck.

Angie

Interesting

That is very interesting and I never even thought about the OR time or travel time b/w institutions. I will have to ask my husband if he has heard about it. Thanks for the input.

[PrincessFiona]

Welcome to the group...I'm late chiming in here (we've been on vacation...yippeee!). My husband is an ID doc and he's starting his 4th year post-training.


I would say ditto to what others said as well in regards to the job search.

My husband interviewed for many different types of positions in areas of the country of interest to him...it helped him to see the variety of practices/salaries/benefits out there. You may want to check out some of the relocation websites (relocation.com or homefair.com etc) to look at cost of living, crime, schools, etc in different areas of the country. This may help you guys narrow things down a bit.

I would also add to also be sure that there is something in the areas that he is applying for you if you feel that you may be interested at some point in going back to school or working. It may be something that you are interested in now or in the future...but it will make things much harder if you get settled into a practice and then discover that his job is great...but that there are few opportunities for you.

kris

[Amiens]

I would also add to also be sure that there is something in the areas that he is applying for you if you feel that you may be interested at some point in going back to school or working. It may be something that you are interested in now or in the future...but it will make things much harder if you get settled into a practice and then discover that his job is great...but that there are few opportunities for you.

That is a really good point! I couldn't figure out why I like thought of living in some communities over others- ie: Boise vs. anywhere in WY. One of our requirements in a community- a state university or college. Now I have words to express my feelings- I can now tell dh that we need think about opportunity for me as well.

Crystal