Aside from schools, quality of life, and their own job opportunities, spouses also ask about what their hospitalist husband or wife’s work schedule would be and how much vacation and holiday time they would have in the prospective job, Dr. Swenson says.
“It’s extremely important that we look at our hospitalists and their spouses being happy in their home life, because if they’re not, that is going to spill over into in their work life,” IPC’s Lary says.
Good Partnership, Bad Partnership
Times arise when the spouse takes a proactive role in evaluating the actual HM job offer, the recruiters say. “In all couples, there is someone who is dominant and someone who is not,” says Fricke, who has seen spouses participate in job interviews with hospital administrators. “If the spouse is dominant, we try to understand them and listen to what is important to them.”
Sometimes the spouse is an attorney or other type of professional who wants to review the hospitalist contract and has the most questions about it, Dr. Swenson says. When that happens, recruiters will often have group members sit in to answer their questions, he says.
“Absolutely, without question, the spouse has to be involved. But if the spouse is too demanding and everything has to be run through them, to an employer, that can be a big turnoff,” Stuckey says.
When it comes to business matters, the physician—not the spouse—has to take the lead, he says. If the physician doesn’t, it could make the prospective employer wonder what challenges could be ahead should the candidate be hired, Stuckey says.
Two-Physician Families
One time when it is acceptable for a spouse to get intimately involved in the contract and negotiations is when he or she is a hospitalist who also is being recruited by the same prospective employer.
“It’s a unique situation. It’s great to have two for the price of one, so to speak,” Stuckey says. “But there are challenges from the employer’s perspective—for example, scheduling—that have to be resolved on the front end rather than when they get there.”
While still relatively rare, husband-wife hospitalist couples are becoming more prevalent because there are more hospitalists, Fricke says. They tend to meet each other in medical school or residency, she says.
“Even though they are a couple, we treat them as individuals during the recruiting process,” Fricke says. “I think the most important thing is we try to do anything we can—within reason, of course—to help the hospitalist and their spouse make the best decision for themselves and their family.” TH
Lisa Ryan is a freelance writer based in New Jersey.