When hospital administrators lose their jobs as a result of consolidation, those professionals often go into the management and administration of rehab centers, surgery centers, radiology centers, and similar related areas. Hospital administrators may temp while the consolidation group selects a new manager.
When a foreign automotive parts company decided to open a plant that would supply automobile parts to a major car company, the company looked for a small town that had an industrial park with abundant geographic space to grow. The company selected a site in Texas and started building a plant that would provide 2000 jobs for the small town.
The administrator of the local hospital realized the hospital would need to expand its services in order to serve the additional growth the plant would bring to the community. The administrator was particularly concerned about the emergency room. The administrator called a professional staffing service that specialized in healthcare, and the service sent one of their representatives to meet with hospital management. They analyzed the situation and discussed the needs of the hospital.
The staffing service recommended that the service staff the emergency room and the physical therapy functions for the next two years. The next two years would determine the hospital's actual needs in the community. At the end of two years, as the plant opened, the hospital and staffing service would evaluate how effective the service had been in meeting the health care needs of the community.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is reporting a 40% shortage of nurses in the country today. Healthcare is looking to staffing services to help with the demands of rural hospitals and rural medical practices. Some standards in rural areas may not be as high for some programs as in urban areas, so staffing services may be able to help rural clinics with candidates who cannot easily find jobs in urban areas.
In the New York area some medical temp staffing is done through Gregory & Gregory Medical Staffing. In New Orleans, Norrell Staffing Services; in Washington, DC, Olsten Health Services and Progressive Nursing Staffers, Inc.; and in Atlanta, Starmed Health Personnel, Inc. For a more detailed listing of staffing services who place temps in the medical profession, please refer to the Appendix or search the Internet for appropriate Web sites.
Doctors
Job prospects are especially good for primary care physicians, such as family practitioners and internists, and for geriatric and preventive care specialists, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 1996 1997 Occupational Outlook Handbook. Because of efforts to control healthcare costs and increased reliance on guidelines that often limit the use of specialty services, a lower percentage of medical specialists will be in demand. Thus, more recent medical school graduates may want to consider temping due to the changing structure in healthcare. Shortages are being reported in the specialty area of general surgery in some rural and low income areas, because physicians find these areas unattractive due to low earnings potential, isolation from medical colleagues, or other reasons not because of any overall shortage of surgeons. Such regional shortages create additional opportunities for temping.
What does this mean to the doctor who may want to temp? Unlike their predecessors, newly trained physicians face radically different choices of where and how to practice. Many new physicians are less likely to enter solo practice and more likely to take salaried jobs or temporary staffing positions in group medical practices, clinics, and HMOs in order to have regular work hours and the opportunity for peer consultation. Others will take salaried positions or temp positions simply because they cannot afford the high costs of establishing a private practice while paying off student loans.
How does the physician determine what his or her pay should be as a professional temp? Physicians have among the highest earnings of all occupations. According to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, average (mean) income, after expenses, for allopathic physicians is about $189,000, and median income is $156,000. The middle 50% earn between $108,000 and $240,000.
Self employed physicians those who own or are part owners of their medical practices have higher median incomes than salaried physicians. Earnings vary according to number of years in practice, geographic region, hours worked, skill, personality, and professional reputation. Median income of allopathic physicians, after expenses, also varies by specialty.
Recent surveys show average salaries of medical residents range from $30,753 for those in their first year of residency to $41,895 for those in their eighth year, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Physician's Assistants
According to a 1994 university of Texas survey of hospitals and medical centers, the median annual salary of physician's assistants, based on a 40 hour week and excluding shift or area differentials, was $48,264. The average minimum salary was $37,639, and the average maximum was $57,005.
According to the American Academy of Physician Assistants, median income for all physician's assistants in 1994 was $53,284; median income for first year graduates was $44,176. Income varies by specialty, practice setting, geographical location, and years of experience.
