Tag: physical therapy

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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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Back to Travel

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As I frequently do, I’ll begin this blog with an apology. The last couple writings from me have been exactly what I hate in a blog, whiny. However, don’t mistake me, I meant what I said.

I need to explain my over-arching intent for a short moment. I like talking about travel, but also want to write about physical therapy (another passion of mine) and about the logistics of this travel PT business. I think I have a lot to offer in these realms, and I always hope that others will participate and add to the conversation and body of travel PT knowledge!

So, while I’ve strayed from the path in the last few posts I intend for this blog to be concise, amusing to a chuckle-worthy level, and mostly about my travels as a Traveling Physical Therapist. I will now complete this blog in the form I feel most at peace with:

This is the 4th winter Kate and I have spent in Aspen. I have posted some of my favorite photos over those four years below. I hope you’ll take the time to click through the thumbnails to the full size pictures and enjoy some of the memories with us.

In addition, I plan to have my nice camera with me over the next few weeks to hopefully catch some other nice photos that I may share here before the up coming road trip in exactly 4 weeks!

Enjoy!

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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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Local Fare

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Yup, this is why I choose to travel over picking a steady home with 2 labrador retrievers, a fenced in back yard, and 1.5 little rug rats. I’ve traded a steady job for 2 storage areas full of my stuff in 2 states that I don’t currently live or work in and a 300 sq ft apartment without a dresser.

Why? Permanent vacation and enjoying everything a new place has to offer.

While writing this blog I drank a Lobster Ale by Belfast Bay Brewing Co of Belfast, ME. It was delicious. Incidentally, I drank it out of a "Surf's Up - Hawaii" koozie, a nick knack from last summer's assignment.

I’m going to put myself through a 30 second drill. In the next thirty seconds I will type as many things as I can think of that I enjoy in each place I move to that are unique to each location: READY. SET. Let’s GO!

-Food
-Drink
-Runs
-Micro-brews
-Hikes
-Accents
-Customs
-History
-Scenic Views
-Nick Knacks

OK, so I started to run out of time when I came up with scenic views. That may be stretching it, but each part of the country does has it’s own look about it that is uniquely beautiful. After “scenic views” I looked out my window and saw a souvenir store full of nick knacks, I apologize. I would like to also acknowledge “micro-brews” is a subcategory of “drinks.” This does not bother me, and I stand by what I wrote on a 30 second clock.

In all seriousness, I love the variety. Talking with the locals, enjoying the local specialties, and absorbing a little bit of each location into who I am. This is what I think it’s all about.

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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.

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Motivations

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As travelers, why do we travel? Why do we choose the assignments we do? What are our motivations?

I think if you ask a bunch of travelers, you’ll get a bunch of answers. The obvious answer is to travel… duh. Some people do it to help pay off loans and choose their assignment based on the pay package. Sometimes it’s a transition to try out a new area of practice or new geography. Travel PT is an awesome oppoprtunity no matter the reason.

On this last assignment, my prioritiess were: 1. getting close to the location for our wedding for frequent weekend trips to prepare;  2. staying in outpatient practice; 3. and stocking away enough moolah to pay for the wedding.

Mission accomplished. While the area of Maine I’ve worked in over the past 3 months has offered a pretty difficult patient population (See “Disparity” 5/20/11), the job has been good. Good boss, good co-workers, good environment.

Which brings me to my next point. You can do anything for 13 weeks. Some assignments are good, some are bad, but usually it boils down to who you supervisor is. Essential travel PT tip of the day: On your interview, ask questions. On the assignments I haven’t liked, my asking a couple of obvious questions on my interview would have saved me a lot of trouble.

Anyways, I’m off to get married in Northern Maine this week. We’ll then travel to the Dominican Republic and Colorado before starting a new assignment. When we return, Hobohealth will undergo some long needed maintainance and we hope to make another surge to connect travlers to e

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ROADTRIP!

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Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

Ahhhhhh, the open road.

I’m just getting settled at my new assignment in Newport, Maine. We drove in from Aspen from Tuesday to Saturday where I had a full refresher course of the fine art of turning a 2,000+ mile drive into something enjoyable.

One thing I remembered to enjoy was those unexpected “life experiences”: As we approached our hotel outside of Chicago that we found on the AAA iPhone app, we found it several miles down a dark access road paralleling, but not accessing, the main interstate. As we got closer, we found it sandwiched between two, ahem, Gentlemen’s clubs. The following drama of finding our way safely back to the highway, finding a new hotel at 11 PM, and eventually settling in to our far more comfortable (and far less grimy) hotel was an adventure that while not enjoyable at the time is a unique experience that does not happen during most peoples’ commute.

That next morning, we were able to stop close to our hotel to check out Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. This is the spontaneous touristing that falls in your lap. Our visit 45 minutes off the highway drive to the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown New York the next day is the other kind of touristing. While I’m talking about it, Cooperstown is definitely a pilgrimage worth taking for any baseball fan. I wish I had a few more hours there, a really cool place (except for all the Yankees fans 🙂 Aha! Go SOX!).

Road trips. I love ’em. In an occupation where the destination is definitely what it’s all about, this was a journey worth enjoying.

—

James R Spencer, PT, DPT, OCS, CSCS

Current Location: Newport, ME

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Traveling doesn’t have to mean professional sacrifice.

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This is the first blog of many. Enough with the statement of intention, let’s get down to it. Choosing quality continuing education programs as a traveling therapist can be a challenge. Courses are often found on-the-go between assignments or among a selection of whatever is available locally.

My biggest fear when a new PT tells me they want to start traveling are the potential loss of mentorship and professional growth. I think in my 5th year of practice (4th year of traveling) I’m just finally getting my head around the things that are important in PT practice. To understand the important pieces of practice that are so necessary to progress to my current level, some mentorship and progression had to happen.

continuing-education-travel-pt-hobohealthI don’t mean to say that an immediate new grad can’t travel, it just takes the right person who is willing to self-motivate and work that extra bit to find the professional expansion they need. My first travel assignment was perfect. It was in a community hospital with a steady staff and a solid director. I had the infrastructure around me where I could ask questions and work towards answers with my co-workers’ help. Ultimately, I found the mentorship I needed to grow. Because of the mentorship and support, I extended my contract there several times, a total of 10 months on my first travel assignment (longer than the “permanent” job I worked before traveling).

Clearly, you’re not always going to be able to find that assignment with all the support you want. So here’s my short list of the other ways to stay motivated, stay on track with your professional goals, and stimulate that mind of yours:

Take a certificate program (i.e. Paris, Maitland, McKenzie, etc.)

These certifications I personally believe are narrow in scope, but they require multiple courses and extensive study in their content. The process for each makes a person a stronger and more knowledgeable therapist.

Become an ABPTS Board Certified Clinical Specialist

This is most comprehensive way to expand you knowledge base in a specific practice area. The studying and learning required to pass the exam for a specialist certification is very time consuming, but will force you to stay up on the latest research and techniques. When you receive the certification it’s a great distinction for your resume and future interviews.

Attend state and national APTA conferences

Conferences are a great way to gain exposure to the highest level of practice. You can get education on a great variety of topics and practice setting in one place. The energy and inspiration at these meetings is contagious.

Enroll in a residency program

There are residencies that allow therapists to take a series of courses on weekends and collaborate with a mentor/expert through electronic means. Finding the right residency can be tough as a traveler, but it can be done if you are determined!

Add a new skill

Take a course on something specific you want to add to your tool box. The sooner you can put new techniques to work, the better, so maybe it’s a skill that meshes well with your current practice setting. Continuing education topics that come to mind for me would be dry needling, manipulation, wilderness medicine, primary responder for sports, mobilization with movement, or muscle energy technique, but your list might be very different from mine.