Tag: jobs

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Borientation

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Travelers. We are trained and practiced in hitting the ground running under any circumstances. After a few assignments, every traveler realizes that all documentation systems are bad, but not equally bad, some are far worse than the others. Aside from a few operational issues, the job is the pretty much the same where ever you go, and it’s not too hard to blend into most teams quickly.

After a traveling on a few assignments, I realized a long orientation can be torturous. Given the choice of a HIPAA presentation, a JCAHO powerpoint, or walking on hot coals, I would take the hot coals in a hot second… besides, I’ve always wanted to try that.


 
Thanks for that, Adam Sandler

For a few assignments, I tried telling supervisors that I didn’t need much of an orientation. “Show me where equipment is, give me a quick run through the paperwork, and I’ll figure out the rest.” This tactic went well for a few assignments, and probably gave me a leg up during a couple interviews. But, it finally backfired last summer. I showed up to a private practice gig up in AK and had seven initial evals on the second day of work. Whoops, that’s too much work for the beginning of any assignment, I definitely over-played my hand.

So, now I’ve toned it down a bit – I have been accepting whatever orientation is bestowed upon me. There’s one phrase that I hear over and over again when I have a light caseload for the first week or two, “Enjoy it while you can.” I guess that’s the lesson I have learned. Orientation isn’t that bad. Easy work, easy money. If I’m allotted an hour for a test on JCAHO regulations, I can hammer it out in fifteen minutes and the extra 45 minutes will break even on a really busy day later in the assignment. Time for a fun side story: I once had four JCAHO audits in one year. Every one of my three facilities that year got audited while I was there, and, also, one of the staffing agencies I worked for was audited. I did an interview with the JCAHO auditor for the staffing agency. At the end of my interview, I got a chance to ask her a few questions. She said that there are over 300 staffing agencies accredited by JCAHO… that’s a lot and really amazes me.

Anyways, the strategy to just take whatever orientation is given to me has totally run-a-muck. I am currently in week 8 of a 12 week contract and finished my last orientation class just a week ago. To give my boss some credit, I am very well prepared. On the other hand, I have been completing online modules until today. I am officially done with orientation and will have only 5 weeks of work without any orientation.

There has to be some middle-point where in the future I can effectively express that I need some orientation, but also that I am seasoned and will be good to go early in the assignment. I haven’t found the happy-medium yet, but I’ll keep on trying.

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Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job! (Part 2 of 2)

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This is part 2 of a 2 part blog on the job market and job finding in traveling physical therapy. Find part 1 here.

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For the last seven years, I have been working as a travel PT. What a job! Every few months, I tell my recruiter where I want to go, what practice setting I would like to work in, and a few weeks later I have a job that fits my criteria.  …Or at least that’s how it worked until the past 6 months.

Key West, "Home of the Sunset." Also, by car, it is about half way between Colorado and Maine.

Key West, “Home of the Sunset.” Also, by car, it is about half way between Colorado and Maine.

My wife and I have been trying to find jobs in Southern Maine. We took our first shot at Southern Maine for the first half of the summer, but struck out. We were searching during a drive back to New England from Colorado, via Key West… a side-trip I recommend on any roadtrip. After we left Florida and were heading north through Connecticut, two possible job locations started to come together. Two jobs in Northern Maine and two jobs back in a sweet mountain town in Colorado. While turning around to head straight back to Colorado sounded like the most convoluted roadtrip ever taken, the chance to spend the summer playing in the mountains was pretty enticing. In the end, the Colorado jobs had one major flaw, Kate and I would be working opposite schedules and likely only have one day off together each week. What’s the point of travel PT if you don’t have the days off to enjoy your “home” town. To be honest, we weren’t psyched about heading to Northern Maine, but we recognized that it was the smart job to take – There were two jobs, they started on the day we hoped to start working, the location was relatively close to where we really wanted to be, and we were totally striking out on Southern Maine.

A couple blogs back, I wrote about our time in Northern Maine. The assignment turned out great. Goods jobs, good people, good times, but just a really, really far drive from everything. We had a few things working against us in looking for a job at the beginning of the summer. 1. We needed two jobs, not just one; 2. We only had active licenses in three states: Alaska, Maine, and Colorado; 3. We, as always, were pretty picky about our jobs. 

There were a couple things we could have done differently to address our above weaknesses: 1. Nothing can really be done about us needing two jobs instead of one, it’s the only downside about traveling with a companion. 2. We could have kept more licenses active to expand the potential search area. We previously had Massachusetts licenses, but had let them lapse. If we had applied for New Hampshire licenses, we could have lived in Southern Maine and commuted across the border to New Hampshire; 3. We could have been more flexible about what jobs we would work. We turned down SNF jobs based on setting alone, if we were more willing to work in a greater variety of settings, we would have found work more easily.

By mid-July, we were back on the job search, hoping to start-up down in Southern Maine the Monday following our Friday wind-down up North. Got it?

Northern Maine sure is beautiful, it's just really far from everywhere.

Northern Maine sure is beautiful, it’s just really far from everywhere.

After a few weeks of searching for jobs, it wasn’t looking good, again. Friday came and went, we moved out of our rustic one room cabin in Northern Maine and headed down to our condo in Old Orchard Beach (OOB). We had hoped to spend the next several months living in the condo in OOB, but after 4-5 months of keeping an eye towards the Southern Maine travel PT market, it seemed like a job, nevermind two jobs, was going to be really hard to come by. It was time to pull out the stops. Along with our recruiters searching for jobs for us, we were conducting our own search for clinics that might not be willing to work with a staffing agency but that would entertain hiring an independent contractor. I’ve written in the past about finding independent contracts, but it wasn’t meant to be this time. A couple phone conversations with office managers and clinic owners yielded nothing. It seemed that just as a job would start to look promising, someone who was willing to sign on permanently would swoop in and take the position.

I try to stick with 2-3 companies that I trust to find me the assignments I want. But, in a situation like I was finding in Southern Maine, it was time to start calling around to the agencies further down the list. “Phishing” was something I rediscovered through calling recruiters further down my list. Phishing is when you see a posting online for a job, but when you call the company advertising the job, the job doesn’t exist. They say something like, “Oh, someone just took that job. Let me see what else I have in that area for you.” Bottom line, the job doesn’t exist, it never did exist, and they’ll post the same imaginary job online next week. They just want to get information on you and see if the can talk you into taking a different job. It’s dishonest and dirty.

Luckily, one lesson had been learned from the search through Southern Maine several months earlier. We might need to expand the search beyond Maine’s borders if jobs continued to be elusive. We had considered New Hampshire licenses, but New Hampshire has a longer process for licensure, and it didn’t seem like having our NH licenses would make all that many more jobs available to us anyways. We each had an expired Massachusetts license and a number of friends living around the Boston area. We had started the process of re-activating our Massachusetts licenses, but had several states to get verifications from before the licenses would be ready. While we waited for the licenses to come through, we shifted gears to focus on Boston instead of Maine. Quickly, we had some options popping up. On Kate’s first phone interview in Boston, difficulties continued. The interview started backwards. Kate was to call the facility, rather than the facility calling her – the way it usually works. After several minutes of trying to make the receptionist understand that she was calling in for a scheduled interview, Kate was asked to call back later. So, she did call back a few minutes later. This time, she was connected to the person she was scheduled to interview with, except he connected her to a supervisor who told her that they were not interested in hiring a traveler at this time. By far the strangest interview either of us has ever not had.

Within the following week, two jobs had been offered in the Boston area, but as always happens, opportunities in Maine were popping up at the same time. In the end, a decision had to be made and 1 bird in your hand is worth 2 birds that are not in your hand (or something like that), so we accepted the Boston jobs. It left us with a couple weeks off, but it was far better to know the job searching was done. So a couple weeks were spent doing a lot of work around our apartment, doing a lot of couch-surfing at friends’ places, and sneaking in some beach time. One last speed bump and work would start on Monday…

Thursday before we started work, a scare – Our Massachusetts PT licenses would not be ready until Tuesday and our new boss was threatening to cut off the assignment if the licenses weren’t in hand when we were scheduled to start work. A series of frantic phone messages to the MA licensing board, an email, and maybe even a fax somehow produced our licenses on time.

Our view of Boston from our new abode. I'll be enjoying this view daily over the next 12 weeks.... guess we're down to 9 weeks already.

Our view of Boston from our new abode. I’ll be enjoying this view daily over the next 12 weeks…. guess we’re down to 9 weeks already.

…and that’s how we ended up working for the next 12 weeks in Boston. Our housing is another story for another day that also ends well, but the couch-surfing, or more accurately, futon-surfing, continued into the first week of work.

This post has dragged on much longer than I like, so it pains me to keep writing, but I believe this topic of the current job market is a very important one, and there are points to be made. I would like to discuss some highlights from the above story about how my wife and I finally got two jobs nearby where we wanted to be in what , locally, was a very difficult market. 1. We recognized a tough market locally and expanded our search methods through looking independently and using additional recruiters; 2. We were able to improve our possible job options by getting an additional state license and expanding our search area; 3. Even though the jobs we got didn’t start right away, we accepted them because we were willing to be flexible.

This whole post is about being flexible and opening yourself up to more opportunities. Carry extra state licenses, look with a couple recruiting companies, consider varied practice settings, and be willing to be patient for a couple weeks. Traveling physical therapy is a job that has a lot of upsides to it. We may be in a small dip in our employment options, but the market will recover quickly and there are currently numerous opportunities out there for anyone willing to be a little flexible. I hope that you can take some of these strategies, apply them to your own situation, and continue living the dream as a traveling PT.

I personally plan on reinstating more of my expired licenses to expand the possible jobs options. There’s a good job out there in a great location, open up your possibilities and allow yourself to find it.

 

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Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job! (Part 1 of 2)

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I have had one heck of an experience finding a job this last time around. I wanted to share the experience, but felt that there was some hard fact searching and job market research that needed to happen before we got into the more entertaining stuff. So this post is really all about prepping for my next blog (to be posted next week).

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A semi-pertinent music video:

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A lot of the trouble I had finding a job this time around mostly had to do with very local/isolated trends, but I know friends in other areas having difficulty getting assignments too. I have begun to wonder if finding a job in travel PT is as simple and lucrative as it was several years ago. I’m not going to make you wait until the end of this post for my conclusion – the outlook is bright and sunshiny with increasing job numbers, increasing wages, and an overall prediction of continuing to live-the-dream! Onward we go with the discussion of why it’s not that bad and why it will soon be so good…

When I was looking at colleges as a high school junior back in 1998/1999, I remember the sage advice of my biology, genetics, and home room teacher Mrs. Sheffield, “Don’t go into physical therapy, there’s no jobs! You should go into computers.” Thanks for that. Wasn’t she supposed to be encouraging my young, vulnerable mind to head towards the sciences!?

The late 90s was a particularly bad time to be going into healthcare. The Balanced Budget Act had recently been passed , and everybody was in a panic cutting staff and freezing hiring in the medical sector. Somewhere in my search for college programs and a potential career, I (or more likely my parents) came across a chart showing trends in employment in PT. Historically, there was a cycle where employment would increase for 6-7 years and then dip downward for 6-7 years. Looking at this chart in the late 90s, I concluded that 1999 and 2000 should be the bottom of the market and that by the time I graduated in 2006, employment in PT should be back near the top! So, I proudly defied Mrs. Sheffield a pursued an education in the jobless field of physical therapy.

I don’t know why employment in PT follows this cycle, and I have tried relentlessly to find another chart that shows what I saw in 1999, but I haven’t been able to find a chart that graphs PT employment over decades. What I do know is that when I graduated from PT school in 2006 the market was great, classmates were turning down jobs that didn’t pay enough, and Mrs. Sheffield was dead wrong. Now, here we are 7 years later, and while I remain gainfully and happily employed, I am finding it harder to get the travel assignments I want than it was just a couple years ago.

I propose that we are maintaining this 6-7 year cycle and we now are at the bottom of that cycle. With the implementation of healthcare reform, similarly like following the Balanced Budget Act in the late 90s, we are in a period where hospitals are tightening their belts because of uncertainty. Soon, the full reform will be rolled out, employers will adjust to the changes in the payment system, and our job market will triumphantly march upward for another 6-7 years. Here’s the kicker! If this really is the bottom of the market for us, we are sitting pretty. Unemployment in PT remains ridiculously low, and there are still plenty of locations out there with a drought of PTs.

Below, I have included several links that I think help paint a good picture of what we are seeing happen in our job market currently and what we can expect to see over the next few years. I encourage you to take a few minutes and check them out, particularly if you are currently or will soon be searching for a job in physical therapy.

The writer in this first reference equates what he is seeing now in the PT job market with what happened after the Balanced Budget Act: Looking to the Future For The Rehab Professions. I wish the writer had gone into more detail about the parallels he sees between the BBA and now, but he describes, in more details than I ever could, the various forces that will influence our employment opportunities in the years to come. A good read for sure.

Some more of the details about what was happening following the Balanced Budget Act can be found in this 2000 article by CNN.

I’m sticking to my guns. If you want to be a travel PT or PTA, do it. It is a very rewarding choice and there are plenty of jobs out there. If you, like me, are in an area that doesn’t have a whole lot of travel jobs, consider working in other areas. Here’s two more links that demonstrate two facts: 1. The current market and outlook for PT employment is VERY good, and 2. there are areas where you can look for a job where it’s ridiculously easier to get hired… Fairbanks anyone?

Top 5 paying locations in the US for PTs

Upward and downwards trends in ease of filling positions in PT mapped nationally <-Really cool map

In my next blog (next week – part 2) I will tell the tale of my last job search that launched me into this look at the job market and offer what I think are some of the ways that each travel PT or PTA can do be more marketable and continue to take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that come through work in travel physical therapy.

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PT International Travel – The Prep Work (part 2)

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This is part 2 of a series on travel abroad as a working Physical Therapist. For previous posts, click “previous blogs” on the menu at the top of the page.

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Whether you are following a significant other somewhere or you are looking to relocate abroad on your own, there are a lot of things you want to consider before and during the transition process. Hopefully my story will help those of you thinking about travel abroad decide to take that leap out of the US and help you figure out how to do it. The process is never ending, but the better prepared you are, the less frustrated you will get!

Souq Waqif, a marketplace and one of the favorite tourist spots in Doha.

Souq Waqif, a marketplace and one of the favorite tourist spots in Doha.

 Like I mentioned in the first post, having a contact may be your greatest advantage in landing a job abroad. Think of a friend or family that lives abroad, a coworker that worked abroad or even someone that knows someone that worked or has contacts abroad. Six degrees of separation may work here! That is generally how most of us foreigners here in Qatar ended up where we are.

Since my husband was the one who took a job that was placing us overseas, I had to do a ton of research on the possible countries – Chile, Australia and Qatar – to see if any of them would be a place I could practice. Unlike many other professions, healthcare workers usually have either the burden of proving their proficiency through re-examination (who wants to take the boards again!) or through verification.

So, before you start packing your bags for some beautiful coastline, there’s a few things you will want to research, and then continue to research throughout the process. I’ll try to keep this as condensed as possible, but here’s some quick links if you don’t want to read all of it.

On the water looking back at Doha

On the water looking back at Doha

Given that we had 3 potential locations we could move to, I started by looking into the culture and the requirements for a PT in each country. A good place to start is the World Federation of Physical Therapy (http://www.wcpt.org). They have contact info for a ton of countries, including websites, emails, phone numbers and addresses. Awesome.

I started by emailing the contact for Chile. The biggest questions I was asking at first were 1. Do they accept a US licensure carte blanc, on a case by case basis, or do they require all international PT’s to take an examination? 2. Is Spanish (or Arabic for Qatar) a requirement or are there hospitals where the primary language among healthcare workers is English? I also checked out Chile’s physiotherapy webpage that I found on www.WCPT.org and googled hospitals in Santiago, Chile. Everything was in Spanish. The email I received from their PT association was in Spanish. Fluency seemed like a must at this point. So for Chile, I waited on proceeding until I had a better idea if we would end up there.

Next was Australia. I started by checking out http://www.physiotherapy.asn.au but also contacted a college professor as well, knowing that she practiced there. In Australia, they evaluate each candidate on a case by case basis, but chances are, an exam was likely. Now, being 6 years out of school, I would want to know that I would be here for at least a few years if I was going to study for another board. Again, further search was put on hold. But I couldn’t help to check out New Zealand, since I was looking in that part of the world. http://www.physioboard.org.nz/index.php?Registration-Overseas-QualifiedPhysiotherapists . Now this is the kind of information I was looking for! Direct information on how to apply as an international PT. Perfect. Now only if we were going there instead!

I saved Qatar for last. This is where we ended up and was probably the most complex process I have ever endured! I began with checking out background information on Qatar which is a moderately liberal/conservative Islamic country in the middle east. We have to be married to live together. I can drive, walk around, and do most things as I would in the US. It is respectful to have my shoulders and knees covered when in public. English is the common language given the hundreds of languages that are spoken here. So it seemed I should be able to transition here with moderate ease.

We then started by asking my husband’s company a ton of questions to find out if I should come over with my husband of if I needed to wait before I made my move. The big questions – sponsorship, benefits and education qualifications. I will get into these topics in the next blog and the details of what I specifically had to do to be eligible to work in Qatar.

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PT International Travel – An Introduction (part 1)

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People are ALWAYS asking me about travel abroad. Unfortunately, I have never traveled abroad to work and know very little about it. Recently, a friend, packed up her bags and headed for Qatar where she has now resumed work as a Physical Therapist. She has been kind enough to put some of her experiences to paper and share them with us.

Over the next month or so, we will post several blogs by Amy Sheridan about her experiences finding work abroad and the logistical and cultural obstacles that she has contended with.

Without further a-do, here is an introduction to Amy and we will soon follow-up with the next several pieces.

-James
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Doha, Qatar largest city. A population of about 1 million.

Doha, Qatar’s largest city. A population of about 1 million.

Ever think of working as a PT abroad? My husband and I had been throwing that idea around for a year or so before a great opportunity arose for him as an engineer in Qatar. We jumped, and I left my physical therapy job in the US and followed him there. Why Qatar? Why work abroad when you can work as a traveling PT in the US? Well, hopefully our tales will give you some background on not only work and play life abroad but also on the process that I had to go through to work in Qatar.

Prior to jumping ship, I worked as a Sports and Ortho PT in a private outpatient clinic in Boston. I had been working there since graduating from Northeastern University in 2006. Having a boss that traveled to the Middle East for 10 or so years to treat athletes actually prepared me to work abroad. I always thought it would be awesome to start traveling with him there. Instead, I ended up here myself.

Amy getting around Qatar via some local transportation.

Amy exploring Qatar via some local transportation.

The number one reason we ended up in Qatar, of all places to relocate to, was contacts. And patience. My husband must have posted his resume on 50 job websites for work all over the world without a single reasonable follow-up (very frustrating, I might add!) before a conversation with a subcontractor led him to a brilliant contact and a job. My job also came from a contact I made 3 years ago at a conference. If that’s not an ad for keeping old business cards, I don’t know what is!

Over the next few blogs, I’ll share the seemingly never ending production of preparing to relocate, the millions of questions we asked before and during the relocation process, securing visas and residency, idiosyncrasies of living in another country, culture shock, and finally what it is like to work in Qatar. I’m hoping that my experience will guide any of you looking into it or in the midst of the process.

-Amy

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THE Job Search

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I promised a few blogs about how we got all our details settled on this current assignment. Given the location (Alaska) being so far away, the popular season we are here in, and a number of other unpredictable factors, setting up this assignment was tricky.

In the past, I’ve worked with a few travelers who have negotiated their own contracts, but Kate and I had never done this. I’ve had some interest in it, but not enough to actively pursue it. There are advantages and disadvantages to both using a recruiter and going the independent route. When you do have a recruiter from a staffing agency, they are your advocate, your negotiator, and your first point of contact for any issues you may have on contract. Also, while we typically choose to arrange our own housing and travel, many staffing agencies will handle this for you if you like.

On the other hand, as an experienced traveler, having the securities of a recruiter as a third party representative comes at a cost. …a real monetary cost. The idea that really attracts people into arranging their own contracts is that you eliminate the middle man and the cost that goes with paying the middle man. Therefore, an employer can dish out less and you get the same or more.

On this assignment, we had a friend in the Anchorage area who was willing to drop our names around town and find some potential employers for us. This worked, this worked very well. Kate quickly got a job offer with a private practice just outside Anchorage. There was a period of stress where she had to be willing to be her own advocate and ask for certain details in her compensation package. Now, she is making good pay and has many of the tax free benefits that a recruiter would be able to offer. The clinic she’s working for has even allowed her to use a car that different therapists have driven over the years, SWEET!

My contract took a little bit longer to develop. I continued to search with a few recruiters, but nothing was really working out. I found a lot of jobs that had repeat travelers lined up for the summer or were just too far from town. We had already started our road trip to AK when another contact of my friend called wondering when I was available. The job hadn’t popped up on any of the searches because the director didn’t want to work through a staffing agency. As it worked out, my benefits are comparable to what I would make through an agency, but by eliminating the middle-man, the clinic is likely paying far lower than they would pay a recruiter… WIN-WIN!

Ultimately, we’re pleased with the jobs we’ve found. The jobs are where we wanted, when we wanted, and are professionally/mentally stimulating. The story of our success negotiating private contracts on this assignment does come with a warning. There were additional stresses having to negotiate our own benefits without a recruiter as a go-between. Also, we would not have been able to negotiate if we hadn’t worked with so many recruiters in the past. Also, if something were to go wrong with the contract, the assignment, or anything it’s on us! The buffer through a middle man is a nice comfort that frequently comes at only a small cost to the clinician.

Here are a few things that I recommend are in your contract whether you go it alone or work through a recruiter:

-Guaranteed 40 hours pay

-A 30 day notice clause for either party to end the contract

-Travel, housing, and licensure fee reimbursement

-Negotiating any planned days off ahead of time

-Holiday schedule and pay

I do have friends and past co-workers who have made their own contracts. We did not do this, the places we were working for had used contract staff before and had their own contracts. I have seen some independent contract examples if you’re interested.

 

 

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Travel Healthcare Websites

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I had something I wanted to blog about, I have totally forgotten what that was. I got on a tear tonight. I’m excited, I’m on fire.

It all started when a friend wrote to see if Kate and I would be at the traveling healthcare conference that’s coming up in October in Vegas. I love the idea of it, I’d love to be a contributing part of it, and I know that no matter what, it’d be a great time.   …in fact, maybe we’ll go.

However, it led me on a little exploration of its organizers and the sites that are similar to HoboHealth. There are more sites than you would think and as best I can tell, HoboHealth is the smallest of these site that will turn up on a few basic google searches. What got me so fired up is that everyone else is fricken SPONSORED! Isn’t the purpose of our sites to help fellow travelers, to advise them in the ways to get the most out of their employment and travel experiences!? Let face it, staffing agencies are financed by us working in whatever job is available and willing to pay for us, not by us waiting around for our perfect assignment. While there are VERY GOOD staffing agencies, there is a direct conflict of interest in them paying us to give good advice!!! A site promising to aide travelers in their decisions cannot be funded by the very entities travelers are doing business with.

I have my own recruiters that I trust greatly, and I have plenty of companies that have failed at the task of holding their travelers’ needs at the center of their business. If you are one of the very few recruiters that works with me, know that Kate and I consider you within our personal circle and have the greatest trust in you. I wish I could plug my friends here, but it undermines the whole point of this website: To help travelers navigate the complicated business of travel PT and to help travelers have positive, well supported assignments in their own paradise.

I’ve spoken with some of my recruiters before about partnering, but never followed through, I never really knew why. I’ve visited sites identical to HoboHealth with 5 times the visitors and wondered how they got all that traffic. Tonight, when I realized those sites are advertising some of the very staffing agencies I despise, I figured out why this site has remained both independent and less visited. Our participants are real travelers just looking for tips from other travelers with no bias. Staffing agencies make their money on the work we do. They should be pleased to have us work for them and should work hard to keep us happy and protected. I love the opportunity here to help other travelers find the same joy in travel physical therapy that my wife and I have.

If you’re a site like HoboHealth without corporate backing, get in touch, let’s help each other help others. If you’re a traveler, ask questions and learn how to travel happily with companies that will support you, not companies only looking to earn their profit off your skilled work. I have found the companies that are willing to support me in my extravagant travels to awesome places with awesome people, I want you to find yours.

Oh man, I’m fired up…. and I finally feel like there’s a purpose to this very time consuming hobby.    🙂    Thanks for reading, I promise more light-hearted travel pictures soon.

 

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Legality Schmeegality

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I don’t really like blogs that are a pointless rant, so I promise I’ll try to keep this productive and at least a little informative for anyone who hasn’t yet been through  getting a new state license.

Kate and I are currently seeking our Washington and Alaska licenses for some potential work this coming summer. We have 4 licenses in common; I have Illinois and Vermont, and she has Florida, 7 states total. To simplify things, we’ve dropped being current in all but two states, our Home State which is the Vacation State (seems contradictory), and Colorful Colorado. Simplify? Yeah, I thought so, until both Alaska and Washington requested official license verification from every state where I hold or have ever held a license as part of their PT License Application. That’s a spousal-total of 11 licenses that need verifying through mostly snail mail and hand written checks. Who uses mail and checks!?!? Even the USPS has online options so that you don’t have to use the mail!

The Best:

1. Florida – $25 and an online submission will get you verified

2. Colorado – No fee and you may fax your request.

 

The Worst:

1. Hawaii – For only $15 per request you can have a verification sent within 20 days of receipt of your written request via mail.

2. Vermont – Written request. They’ll deposit your check and then have no record of your request.    <– happened to me

3. Illinois – Don’t bother calling, you’ll be on hold for 2 hours.

 

So, back to point, I’ve spent four hours getting these 2 applications together and probably have another 2 hours to go. Most of this time is a result of pre-internet legislation that dictates you do things as you would when mail and and personal checks were pretty much your only options. Part of the reason these laws have persisted is that no one likes to open their practice acts. When a practice act is modified, it offers a chance for other professions and interests to alter the law for their benefit as opposed to the benefit of PTs, PTAs, and patients. HOWEVER! Should you find yourself in a state with an open practice act and the chance to have your voice heard, please beg that licensure be brought into the 21st century, argue against the arbitrary barriers that keep well qualified professionals from practicing in a place that could probably use them, and educate your colleagues on the difficulties these laws place on state employees who must waste their time dealing with all kinds of paperwork for information quickly and easily available on the internet (fsbpt.org).

Really, I’m being a little melodramatic. Getting your license in a new state is generally a matter of paperwork, if your status as a PT/PTA is healthy, there’s no reason you won’t be licensed if you can get the paperwork to the right places in a timely matter. We’ve been licensed in many states now and have a greater burden because of it, if you’ve only worked in one state, it’s pretty straight forward.

Well I have to run, I’ve got some applications to fill out and an currently open Colorado Practice Act to leave my mark on.  🙂

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What a Difference a Day Makes

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Kate (my wife, also a traveling PT) and I planned to write daily on our search for traveling jobs over the next several days or at most a couple of weeks. That plan has been blown. Between 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM today, our recruiter called and said there was a potential job, set up a phone interview, got 2 jobs lined up, and emailed the contract paperwork. WHAT!?!? Yesterday I was chewing my nails nervously about the difficulty of finding a job, and today I’m happily employed. Such is the life of a traveler.

Since I can no longer tell tales of traveler misfortune, I’ll stick with giving you some of the details of our current arrangement. I stick by my motto that I learn something new with each job search, and I hope this story can be educational for a new or experienced traveler;

-We found ourselves, last Tuesday (8/16/11), without any decent leads on a projected 8/22 start in Maine. We had been searching through our two “go-to” recruiters. We went into a more urgent mode and called up several of our past recruiters and started the process of reinstating our Massachusetts licences. The strategy was to expand the pool of jobs that were available to us. This did uncover a couple more opportunities that fell apart before we could even interview for the potential jobs.

-As the weekend passed, we knew we weren’t going to make our intended start date, but continued with daily check-ins to each of our recruiters. We interviewed with a couple jobs that weren’t in our ideal location, but would serve the purpose if we continued with poor availability of jobs.

-Today, we got lucky. One of our original recruiters reached a hospital in beautiful, scenic Boothbay Harbor, Maine right after the hospital’s current traveler gave his 2 week notice. We were notified of the position and scheduled with an afternoon phone interview. What we ended up with was two different positions with the same facility through our recruiter. One is your typical hospital-based travel position, one is a more crafty arrangement as a prn that is able to be cancelled should a full travel position arise in the area. A second travel position is more desirable due to the higher pay, tax breaks, and guaranteed 40 hours, but given our DESPERATE situation… we love it.

It’s interesting how this one has panned out. Not your typical travel assignment, but perfect timing for us. Sometimes it is all about timing – in this particular case, 0 jobs turned into 2 jobs in a 4 hour span – sometimes, that’s the way it goes. Fun sidenote, Kate and I both grew up visiting Booth Bay Harbor. As kids we each made annual visits to the same condo complex – wierd, right?

We’ll keep you updated over the next week as we search for housing, attempt to upgrade to a second full-time position, and get ready for a short 10.5 wk assignment.

Cheers and Merry Travels,

James

Flexibility

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...but no travel PT jobs

Well, the honeymoon’s over.

No, really, we just got back from our honeymoon to my mother-in-law’s house with few immediate options for a new job. This is a first in my 5 years of traveling. I have never passed my start date without some sort of job lined up. But, I guess it’s all I can expect without having seriously put some attention towards finding an assignment until sometime last week. This time does seem different than others, though. There’s no immediate attractive job options on the horizon in the great state of Maine. One option to start 3 weeks from now has arisen, but I’d rather be working today.

So what do you do when the jobs you’re looking for are dried up? Well, we’re scrambling to get our Massachusetts’ licenses. For some reason the 20 short miles of New Hampshire between Maine and Massachusetts is blocking all the decent jobs from coming North. So, the current deal is that we are waitingfor our job updates and hoping to see our Massachusetts’ licenses materialize. Then, we can grab a couple jobs down there if nothing pops up here in the meantime.

I guess it’s not all that bad, having to be a little flexible this month is quite a fair trade for the many years of easy and fun traveling I’ve done. I need to get going, my margarita needs a refill and there’s some lobsters that need cooking. Ah, the way life should be and I’m sure there’s a couple jobs on the horizon.