The Physician Recruiting Marketplace, Part 4

As a member of the National Association of Physician Recruiters (http://www.napr.org/), I've recently had the privilege of seeing an article prepared by Tammy Jamison, a Senior Physician & Executive Recruiter with the Lehigh Valley Hospital & Health Network in Allentown, PA. Tammy's article is filled with statistics about the physician recruiting market. I'd like to share some of her well researched details with you.

Solutions to Recruiting Challenges

Expand Candidate Pool

As the face of medicine has changed, so too must the expectations of today’s employers. While it is often the case that hospitals and practices want to hire physicians who are fully schooled in the US, the employers must recognize that the candidate pool is limited and that in order to fill positions, they must be willing to consider well trained international medical school graduates. Hiring IMGs is ideal to increase diversity in the physician workforce in order to mirror the diversity among patient populations. It is also important to remember that even if physicians have completed medical school and residencies in other countries, they have to repeat their residency training in this country in order to be eligible for board certification.

Since it is predicted that be the year 2010 approximately 40% of US physicians will be women, it is natural to assume that hospitals and practices will be hiring more women in the future. Due to family demands, many women choose to work part-time or flexible hours. Employers need to respond to those desires by considering job sharing, or by being willing to offer flexible hours to new female recruits.

Know Your Audience

Employers that creatively address the preferences of the younger workforce will be more successful than those that don’t. Hospitals that employ physicians, and private practice leaders who hope to add partners, need to be educated about the realities of the recruiting market in terms of numbers and about the expectations of the emerging workforce. They need to be able to relate to this faction of the workforce by understanding what is important to them and responding to those needs.

Gen-X workers place a high value on relationships, so the recruitment process should be relationship-oriented and be a thorough and positive process. After the physician has been hired, the pre-employment phase should include frequent contact with the soon-to-arrive new physician. Because the Gen-X workforce has witnessed parents and friends being downsized from organizations, they tend to feel less loyal to an organization than those of their parents’ generation. What they value are employers who help them build marketable, portable skills that will help them to be successful wherever they go. This group of physicians will be attracted to employers who:
« Provide comprehensive orientation programs
« Develop mentoring programs that help them with decision making, maximizing collections, etc.
« Educate them about internal practice management guidelines to aid them in achieving high productivity
« Communicate clear expectations about performance
« Provide regular and frequent feedback about performance and offer help where they fall short

This study reveals some good and not so good news for physician recruiters. While it is clear that recruiting physicians is challenging, and will most likely become more so as the impending shortage becomes more evident, physician groups and healthcare organizations will rely very heavily on physician recruiters to accomplish their goals of filling their physician opening. And, it is great to be needed, isn’t it?

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I’ve appreciated the wisdom that Tammy has shared with us and hope that learning more about the nuances of physician recruiting has been helpful.

This is a great industry to be a part of ….a great time to be in the business…and wonderful rewards await the employers who get it, the candidates who go through it and the recruiters who support it!

Happy and healthy hiring.

Lynden