What Is a Locum Doctor?

Locum tenens doctors are healthcare professionals who fill in for physicians away from their jobs, either temporarily or permanently. These doctors can work in hospitals and other locations across the country.

Locum tenens work offers benefits that include flexible schedules, high pay rates (sometimes), and a chance to build your resume and get experience working in different areas of medicine.

But there are some challenges involved with locum tenens employment—namely, finding assignments that fit your skill set and speciality area, dealing with understaffed facilities, and not having access to health insurance.

What Is a Locum Doctor?

Locum tenens is a Latin phrase that means "holding a place." However, this can also apply to doctors who temporarily fill in for doctors who have left or gone on vacation.

When you need an emergency doctor, and you don't want the inconvenience of calling around looking for one, it's best to consider using locums instead. Locum tenens doctors are available 24/7 and will come immediately if needed - without worrying about finding someone new first!

What Are the Benefits of Locum Tenens Work?

As a locum tenens physician, you have the flexibility to choose from a variety of assignments that best suit your needs. You may choose to work as an emergency room doctor, general practitioner or surgeon in one hospital for several weeks or months at a time. Alternatively, you could opt for shorter stints as an outpatient physician and spend less time away from home by choosing locum opportunities closer to your home base.

Another benefit of working as a locum tenens physician is that there are many different types of jobs available in many locations around the country and even around the world (in fact, some hospitals offer international assignments).

This means there's plenty of opportunity to explore different locations and practice various types of medicine.

What Types of Healthcare Professionals Work in Locums?

Doctors work locums—general practitioners, paediatricians, obstetricians and gynaecologists, psychiatrists, and surgeons. Some doctors work in the field full-time while others do it part-time or even just an occasional job.

Most doctors in this capacity are either new graduates or experienced professionals looking for something different in their medical careers. Locum's work can be a great opportunity because it allows you to choose when you want to work and where you want to practice medicine.

If your current position doesn't allow flexibility with scheduling or location changes constantly at your job site, then working locums may be right for you too!

How Does the Locums Process Work?

As a locum tenens (LTD) doctor, you will work for a healthcare facility as an independent contractor. You are not an employee of the facility, but you contract with them to provide medical services for a specific period. This is different from being hired by a hospital or clinic as an employee because then you would receive benefits such as health insurance and paid vacation time.

What makes this arrangement beneficial to both parties is that it allows hospitals and clinics to bring in highly-skilled doctors quickly when they need them without having to commit to long-term contracts or having to pay benefits as other full-time employees do.

It also gives locums doctors flexibility with their schedules since they aren't required to work full-time hours at one location over extended periods.

Do You Need a License to Work as a Locum Tenens Doctor?

In some cases, you may need to have a license or certification to work in the best locum service in Sydney. Some states require you to have a license for your practice to be legal. You'll also want to check with your speciality board and see if they require licensure or certification for you to work as a doctor within their field of medicine.

In addition, some states only allow temporary licenses for practising physicians. If this is the case in your state, make sure that you obtain this temporary credential before beginning any locum tenens jobs so that they can be legally recognised by insurance companies and patients alike.

What Are Some of the Biggest Challenges for Locum Doctors?

You may also be wondering what the biggest challenges are for locum doctors. Some of them include:

• Scheduling (finding jobs, scheduling shifts)
• Travelling (you'll be moving around a lot)
• Lack of continuity (you're not working with the same people or in the same place)
• Lack of support (most medical practices don't have an infrastructure in place to support locums)

How Do I Become a Locums Physician?

If you want to become a locums physician, the first thing you have to do is get your license. You can get a license by completing an accredited residency program and passing the USMLE exams. Or, if you have already completed a residency program and passed the USMLE exams, then you can complete an accredited fellowship program to obtain your license.

Then, once you have your license and are ready to work as a locums physician temporarily, it will be easy for employers like staffing agencies or hospitals/clinics/hospitals -etc.-to find positions for which they need temporary doctors who can fill in until permanent employees return from leave or maternity leave etc.

Working as a locum tenens doctor can be exciting and rewarding, but it comes with some challenges. The most important thing to remember is that the work is temporary and you should enjoy every minute! You will have the opportunity to work with different patients, travel and be adequately paid for your work.

Tell us your story

Would you like to write for nichemarket just like Mark has? Find out how to submit a guest post and when you're ready, you can contact us.

Are you looking to promote your business?

Medical practices can create their free business listing on nichemarket. The more information you provide about your business, the easier it will be for your customers to find you online. 

Registering with nichemarket is easy; all you will need to do is head over to our sign-up form and follow the instructions. If you require a more detailed guide on how to create your profile or your listing, then we highly recommend you check out the following articles.

• How to create a nichemarketer profile
• How to create a nichemarket business listing

Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have time to spare why not check out these related posts and dive deeper down the rabbit hole that is health and beauty.

• How does 3-dimensional printing help in dentistry
• How Safe It Is To Sedate Kids for Dental Surgery
• 16 Tips For A Patchy Beard
• Plastic Surgery: Fact vs Fiction

Tags: Medical , Medicine, Guest Post