Tips for Landing Your First Job in Hospital Medicine
Finding the right hospitalist position can help make the transition from resident to attending enjoyable as you adjust to a new level of responsibility. But the wrong job can leave you feeling overwhelmed and unsupported. So what is a busy senior resident to do? Here we offer selected pearls and pitfalls to help you find a great position.
Initial Steps and Things to Consider
Start applying in the fall of your PGY-3 year. The process of interviewing applicants, finalizing contracts, arranging for hospital privileges, and enrolling a new hire in insurance plans can take many months. Many employers start looking early.
Meet with your residency program director and your hospitalist group director to discuss your plans. They can help you clarify your goals, serving as coaches throughout the process, and they may know people at the places you are interested in. Recruiters can be helpful, but remember—many are incentivized to find you a position. Advertisements in the back of journals and professional society publications are useful resources.
Obtain your medical license as early as possible. Getting licensed in the state you will be working in can be much faster if you already have a license from another state. Applicants have lost positions because they didn’t have their medical license in time.
Don’t shop for a job based on schedule and salary alone. There are reasons some jobs pay better than most, and they aren’t always good (home call, for example). A seven-on, seven-off schedule affords a lot of free time, but while you are on service, family life often takes a back seat. Conversely, working every Monday to Friday offers less free time for travel or moonlighting.
Think about the care model you prefer. Do you want to work with residents, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, or in a “direct care” model where it’s just you and the nurses caring for patients? Salaries often are inversely related to the number of providers between you and the patients. Positions without resident support might require procedural competence. Demonstrating academic productivity, especially in the area of quality improvement or patient safety, can help you secure a position working with residents. Some programs first place new hires on the non-teaching service to earn the chance to work with residents and medical students.
Think about what type of career you want. Do you only want to see patients, or do you want a career that includes a non-clinical role for which you will be paid? Some hospitalists find that becoming a patient safety officer or residency program director, trying out a medical student clerkship, or growing into another administrative role is a great complement to their clinical time and prevents burnout.
How to Stand Out
Start off by getting the basics right. Make sure your e-mail address sounds professional. A well-formatted CV, with no spelling errors or unexplained time gaps, is a must. A cover letter that succinctly describes the type of position you are looking for, highlights your strengths, and does not wax on about why you wanted to become a doctor—that was your personal statement for med school—is helpful. Don’t correspond with employers using your smartphone if you’re prone to autocorrect or spelling errors, or if you tend to write too casually from a mobile device. Before you shoot off that immediate e-mail response, make sure you’re addressing people properly and not mixing up employers.
Join SHM (they have trainee rates!), and attend an SHM conference or local chapter meeting if you can (www.hospitalmedicine.org/events). SHM membership reflects your commitment to the specialty. Membership in other professional societies is a plus as well.
