AAPM&R Career Services: Scoping Out the Possibilities

“I’ve gone to the AAPM&R Annual Assembly for three years, and I’ve been to three Job Fairs,” said Scott J. Campea, MD, a fourth-year resident who will begin a spinal cord injury fellowship in July. “The best experience was when I wasn’t specifically looking for a job, just wandering through and looking at options.”

The AAPM&R Job Fair became a minicourse in possibilities. “I hadn’t realized that there weren’t just job offerings, there were also fellowships,” Dr. Campea said. In a few short hours, he learned a lot about fellowships.

Dr. Campea didn’t find his fellowship that day, he found his field. “It was ironic,” he said. “Before the Job Fair I didn’t even know that was what I wanted to do.”

AAPM&R offers two major career networking services. The Job Fair at the Annual Assembly and the Physiatrist’s Job Board here on the Academy Web site. This year’s Job Fair will be held on Wednesday, September 26 at the Boston Marriott Copley Place in Boston. There is no charge for residents who have registered for the Assembly.

Medical school and residency may have felt like a high-speed fast track for a good many years, but final decisions about fellowship training and full-time positions are softer turf. It’s best to tread lightly and circle a few times. There’s no better way to do that than to visit the Annual Assembly Job Fair a year or two before you’re in the market, and make a habit of checking the AAPM&R Physiatrist’s Job Board.

Online searching and job posting have found their niches in the job-hunt toolbox. Since the Job Board first went live in 1997, Academy members have submitted more than 2,000 online position applications and over 720 jobs have been posted. The online Job Board is by far one of the most frequently visited segments of the Academy Web site. Residents seeking fellowships and job-seekers at every stage of their careers should bookmark this link. The site offers confidential resume postings and only Academy members have full access to the listings and the services.

The Job Fair held in conjunction with the AAPM&R Annual Assembly is equally well established; more than 400 residents and practicing physiatrists attended this year, and those who completed an onsite survey gave the experience high marks. The Job Fair gives participants a first-hand grasp of the market for their skills. A total of 69 employers and recruiters took advantage of the opportunity to meet residents and practicing physiatrists in Hawaii.

A career match is about more than academics, there is always an interpersonal piece. In short, “it doesn’t hurt to talk to somebody,” said Randy Awni, a principal in Miner/Mason Associates, a physiatrist-only recruiting firm that hosts a booth at the Job Fair every year. “We take their information down, find out where they want to go, and do a Plan A and a Plan B” he said. “We’ll call them within a couple weeks to find out more, and then, when the ideal job comes up, we can contact them.”

Benoy V. Benny, MD, director of the spine, sports, and pain program in the department of PM&R at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX, didn’t find his position through the Job Fair, but a conversation he had there revealed an entirely unexpected interest in moving across the country.

“It was useful to know where all the private practice jobs were, and how many were available in academics,” said Dr. Benny. “I was just about to leave the Job Fair, and was looking through the sections for people interested in musculoskeletal care and pain. I happened to see a position out in North Carolina that I would not ordinarily have considered. But I happened to be there to inquire, and so I met with the person. My wife and I went out for the interview, and we almost moved there. I had no intention of looking out there initially, it was part of the country I’d never been to. Yet in the end, it was a very, very tough decision. Meeting the people doing the hiring, talking to them, you get to see whether what they have is what you’re looking for. If you’re open, there are a lot of jobs out there,” he said.

“If you’re open,” seems to be the password to opportunities as you search for jobs and fellowships. Awni stresses that the opportunities are there for those with an open mind and are not intent upon private practice outpatient-only work right away.

Physicians just starting out are well advised to seek an inpatient-care position, he said, because outpatient care generates too little contact in the professional community. “You have to find a way to get to know people to get those referrals,” Awni said. “If you’re carrying five, 10, or 15 inpatient beds, that’s your bread and butter, that pays the bills until the outpatient work picks up. Most people don’t realize that you need to do some inpatient care to set up your outpatient practice down the road.”

Recruiters that specialize in physiatry like Awni and Linda M. Farr, president of Farr Health Care, say that they offer a welcome “big picture” perspective on opportunities in the specialty. Farr said that she prefers to advertise positions on the AAPM&R Job Board, because the Academy is the premiere connecting point for rehabilitation medicine.

“The AAPM&R Job Fair and Job Board is the place where all the physiatrists who are considering opportunities gather to hear about different options at the same time,” Farr said. “I’m the intermediary between the opportunity and the doctor.”

“There are a million other [career opportunity] Web sites,” Farr said, but many are not knowledgeable about physiatry. Firms that represent many specialties, she said, will not have the same focus or the same personal knowledge of the field. A physiatry-only firm is more likely to appreciate specialty-specific nuances, and may already be familiar with the history of a given practice.

When investigating opportunities, Farr said, “Try to discern if it is a replacement position, and if so why. Get everything under the sun that you can get in a contract in the contract. Try to talk with physicians in the area to get some history of the practice itself.”

If you haven’t already done so, create your account on the Job Board and register for this year’s Annual Assembly to attend the Job Fair – it doesn’t cost to look! Who knows what you’ll find?
 

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