Read time: 2 minutes
The biggest hurdle most clinicians face when they initially consider locum contract work is mental, which we have discussed time and time and time and time… again!
The second hurdle they face is geographic – “What do I do if the staffing needs are not in my immediate vicinity?! HELP. I HAVE CHILDREN…THINK OF THE CHILDREN”
Newsflash: if all the great locum positions were located within a 30 minute drive from where you already live, there wouldn’t be a staffing supply vs demand mismatch because you’d likely already work there!
Don’t fear travel
In order to make the most of locum contract opportunities, you have to be available.
You have to cast a wide net, gather all the information that you can, and make an informed decision about where/how you spend your time.
Travel can be scary to some: there are a lot of unknowns.
People are scared to go somewhere new, travel somewhere new, rent a car, stay in a hotel/airbnb, or take a flight.
This all stacks on top of the anxiety of meeting new colleagues, new nurses, and new surgeons or getting acquainted with new workflows, EMR’s and infusion pumps
Those fears are only holding you back; the fundamentals stay the same wherever you practice clinical medicine.
The more sanguine your view of the challenges that lie before you, the better the chance that you will succeed.
Let’s do some math
So let’s say you balk at the idea of flying or driving somewhere to work because you say that the long commute negates any benefit in making better money or working every other week.
It takes me 3 hours each way to drive to a smaller, rural/exurban hospital for a 5 day week of working.
When I’m staying locally at a small hotel chain or Airbnb, it only takes me 10 minutes each way to get to the local hospital.
My full week of commuting: 6 hours to the locale and 100 minutes of daily driving, totals 460 minutes each week or about 45 minutes each way (90 minutes round trip) each work day.
Do you know anyone in the greater NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta, or Miami areas whose commute is 40+ minutes each way?
(My entire readership raises their respective hands.)
I know a half dozen people who spend that time alone underground commuting on subway cars from Brooklyn to Manhattan before you even factor in their walk!
The average commute time for all Americans is just under 30 minutes, whereas for major metro areas like those above usually average ~35 minutes.
And let’s remember that these data are provided by self-reporting surveys where individuals are likely to round down, under-reporting their total daily suffering… I mean commuting.
Don’t dismiss a position because it takes some travel to get there.
I strongly recommend considering anywhere that’s a direct flight <90 minutes in the air or a drive <4 hours.
Home and Away
If you don’t want to sleep anywhere but in your own bed, then I hope you live central to a major metro area with plenty of hospitals and surgery centers.
But in the locum contract world we have to make trade offs.
And one such trade off, as the saying goes, is that ‘beggars can’t be choosers.’
That is to say: if you want better pay for your time or the ability to pick your own schedule or to never have to work a holiday again or to spend more time at home, then you have to go where the demand is.
No matter whether you fly or drive – just be sure to get credit for all the points/miles/awards as a perk of traveling for business.
Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help:
1) Let’s talk through what choosing your own path through medicine looks like. Over the phone, confidential, free:
https://calendly.com/tonyvullo/20min
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