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After Ravi Pujara finished his residency and one year of fellowship, the funds in his bank account had been depleted — he needed a job, and he needed it right away. His fellowship didn’t feel like the right fit, and finding a permanent job in Washington, D.C. was daunting. Feeling discouraged, he stumbled onto CompHealth through a Google search and learned he could get placed in a position within the month. He jumped at the opportunity.
Now, the pediatrician touts locum tenens as a great way to get started and to make extra money when you’ve settled in a career. “It’s great for people who don’t yet know what they want to do,” says Dr. Pujara. He shares three aspects of working locums that he finds most beneficial:
- Exploring other opportunities. Locums gives physicians an opportunity to work in various sizes of hospitals and clinics across the country, from big academic centers to community hospitals. Dr. Pujara says, “The more places you go, the more you learn and the better you’ll practice in the end.” Broadening his horizons, he says, has been “a win-win for everybody.”
- Maintaining knowledge. While he enjoys working as an urgent care pediatric physician, Dr. Pujara wants to keep up his other skills—working with CompHealth allows him to get hospitalist jobs that help him flex mental muscles he doesn’t use in his everyday position.
- Earning supplemental income. In the beginning, locum tenens helped Dr. Pujara rebuild his savings. Now, he moonlights as a locums physician to bring in extra income while seeing new parts of the country.
Why CompHealth? Dr. Pujara says, “I work with CompHealth because it’s seamless.” The daily demands of his permanent job make it difficult to spend much time finding the hospitalist positions where he’d most like to moonlight, but CompHealth’s recruiters do all the work for him. They know what his needs are, they manage all the paperwork, and they arrange travel. With the help of a skilled recruiter, Dr. Pujara can balance two jobs—and a bigger bank account.
Learn more about locum tenens and explore opportunities with CompHealth.