One other reason I left private practice is because I worried (not much, but a little) about what would happen to me if something happened to my doc. If he couldn’t work, was I out of luck? That thought bothered me. There are other reasons I don’t like working for just one doc (though there are lots of upsides). One of them is that he could fire me at any time. In general, I’m not a fan of having one boss for those reasons. It may be easier for the day to day, but I’m worried about safety with one boss.
At the hospital, technically I have one boss who could fire me, but I really work with over 60 docs in a year and they are my “customers.” If one of them fired me, that’d be fine because I’d have 59 others. I’d have to work pretty hard to get all sixty on board to fire me.
I then added another form of income, PAER, for the same reason. It didn’t need to be much income, it just had to be a source away from the hospital. If things went terribly wrong at the hospital, I wanted a backup plan.
At PAER, I have thousands of bosses. I like that model. If one person decides they don’t like my material, it doesn’t really affect my position. It would take hundreds of people to “fire me” from PAER.
My wife is a teacher by trade and I’m a PA. Our jobs are pretty stable, but I know a lot of PAs who are furloughed right now. No work = no income.
I never thought it would happen, but that’s what backup plans are for. For the things you can’t imagine going wrong.
I don’t say this to worry you. I do say it so that you go in with your eyes open to the risk and rewards of any job.
What are the chances that the surgery center closes down?
What are the chances that the doc I’m working for is going to be in practice ten years from now?
What are the chances I could move from one doc to another in this bigger practice?
And on and on and on.
Ask those types of questions as you look and work.
Would that stop me from going back to private practice? No, but I would have some questions for them at my interview. I would have little thoughts in the back of my head about backup and contingency plans.
As always, keep thinking.
But of course, before that matters, you need to pass the medicine and the PANCE. Let me help there too. Get yourself a copy of The Final Step and you’ll be heading in the right direction.
Brian Wallace
