The Top 10 Pandemic-Proof Healthcare Jobs

Healthcare is often touted as a recession-proof industry. But is it pandemic-proof? Given the number of available jobs, it seems so. See the most in-demand position types here.

Healthcare is often touted as a recession-proof industry. This is typically believed, because, even in the worst economic times, people still require medical care. However, it is proving not to be entirely pandemic-proof, with more than 40,000 healthcare professionals being laid off in March, when COVID-19 began to significantly impact nearly every industry in the United States.

Healthcare is still hiring for a surprisingly large number of positions, though, despite the pandemic continuing on, and not all of them are related to COVID-19, either.

Here are the top ten most in-demand positions right now, according to data from our job board.

1. Registered Nurse

Number of Available Jobs: 7,761
States with the Most Available Jobs: California, New York, Massachusetts
View All Registered Nurse Jobs →

2. Physician

Number of Available Jobs: 4,141
States with the Most Available Jobs: California, New York, Pennsylvania
View All Physician Jobs →

3. Speech Language Pathologist

Number of Available Jobs: 3,462
States with the Most Available Jobs: California, Texas, Illinois
View All Speech Language Pathologist Jobs →

4. Physical Therapist

Number of Available Jobs: 2,840
States with the Most Available Jobs: California, Texas, Illinois
View All Physical Therapist Jobs →

5. Nurse Practitioner

Number of Available Jobs: 2,222
States with the Most Available Jobs: New York, California, Connecticut
View All Nurse Practitioner Jobs →

5. Occupational Therapist

Number of Available Jobs: 2,222
States with the Most Available Jobs: California, Texas, Illinois
View All Occupational Therapist Jobs →

7. Physical Therapist Assistant

Number of Available Jobs: 1,833
States with the Most Available Jobs: California, Texas, Illinois
View All Physical Therapist Assistant Jobs →

8. Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant

Number of Available Jobs: 1,725
States with the Most Available Jobs: California, Texas, Illinois
View All Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant Jobs →

9. Respiratory Therapist

Number of Available Jobs: 1,703
States with the Most Available Jobs: Pennsylvania, Alaska, Florida
View All Respiratory Therapist Jobs →

10. Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist

Number of Available Jobs: 1,346
States with the Most Available Jobs: Texas, California, Virginia
View All Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist Jobs →

Don’t see your position listed? That doesn’t mean it isn’t hiring. Search for it on our job board by clicking here.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

The 3 States with the Most Physician Jobs

Hiring in healthcare is off to a strong start in 2020, adding more than 35,000 jobs in January alone. See where the most physician jobs are right now.

In terms of hiring, the healthcare sector is off to a strong start in 2020, adding more than 35,000 jobs in January alone, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. So, where are the jobs? We analyzed data on our site and came up with the top three states with the most available openings for physicians right now, as well as a selection of noteworthy positions in each state.

1. California

Average Annual Physician Salary in California: $197,860

Noteworthy Openings in California:

Click Here to Search Physician Jobs in California →

2. Pennsylvania

Average Annual Physician Salary in Pennsylvania: $208,470

Noteworthy Openings in Pennsylvania:

Click Here to Search Physician Jobs in Pennsylvania →

3. New York

Average Annual Physician Salary in New York: $192,900

Noteworthy Openings in New York:

Click Here to Search Physician Jobs in New York →

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

On Call on Christmas? Here’s How to Cope.

If you celebrate Christmas and find yourself on the schedule, here are four ways to cope with being on call during the holiday.

If you work in the medical field, particularly in a hospital setting, having to work on Christmas is not out of the question. While a lot of private practices and clinics will close their doors for the holiday, hospitals do not have holiday hours. After all, illnesses and injuries strike indiscriminately, and they do not have a habit of checking the calendar before they do.

Though many who work during the Christmas holiday may be of a religion that does not celebrate it, or those who haven’t a family to celebrate with, if you do celebrate and find yourself on the schedule, here are four ways to cope with being on call for Christmas.

Remember the Reason for the Season

To many, the reason for the season is found in the importance of giving. From the presents tucked under the tree to the time spent with loved ones, giving is woven throughout the Christmas holiday. By working on Christmas, you are giving, as well. Not only to the patients you are treating, but also to your coworkers who you are “taking one for the team” for by allowing them to spend the holiday outside of the hospital. That surely makes you feel just a little merry.

Reschedule the Holiday

No one says you absolutely, without question, have to celebrate Christmas when everyone else does. Make your own traditions for the years you end up on call—celebrate Christmas Eve on the Eve of the Eve, open presents the day after Christmas. Your family is already likely used to being flexible, given your career, and they will be just as thrilled to celebrate with you a day early, or a day late, as they would be to celebrate with you right on time.

Give Yourself Something To Look Forward To

If you are on the schedule for Christmas, there is a fairly high probability that you will not have to work on other big holidays, such as New Year’s Eve or Valentine’s Day. Give yourself (and/or your likely very understanding spouse, if you have one) something to look forward to and make plans for the days you won’t have to work. The gratification may not be instantaneous, but it may boost your spirits just enough to get you through your shift.

Celebrate with Your Work “Family”

It takes a lot of people to staff a hospital, even on a holiday. Those people are in the same position as you, and all of you can find some comfort in that. Spread a little cheer by celebrating together with a potluck, catered meal, or Secret Santa type of gift exchange. Even if Christmas isn’t your holiday, a good meal or a fun gift can go a long way to get you through a shift.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Optimizing EHR to Reduce Burnout? It’s Worth A Shot.

There is no one solution to fix physician burnout, considering it is a multifaceted issue, but optimizing EHR certainly can’t hurt.

Burnout, as we’ve reported over and over and over, is a pervasive problem impacting the physician workforce in the United States. There is no one solution to fix it, considering it is a multifaceted issue. However, the AMA has one suggestion—streamlining EHR.

EHR, which is often labeled as a factor of physician burnout, hasn’t exactly lived up to the hype surrounding it when it was introduced. It was supposed to be the wave of the future, a way to improve the healthcare experience for not only patients, but staff, as well. It’s done nearly the opposite, becoming a time-consuming burden for physicians and leading to breaches of patient data in a way that was never really possible with paper health records. However, it is seemingly here to stay, so optimizing it only makes sense, and one practice in Massachusetts may have cracked the code on how to do this.

In 2016, Reliant Medical Group, a 500-provider multispecialty practice in Massachusetts, ranked in the 97th percentile nationally for EHR usability. The system they have developed has reportedly resulted in a 25% reduction in physician in-basket message volume over an 18-month period.

How did they do it?

Establish A Comprehensive EHR Team

Reliant developed a team, which is comprised of five physicians, one physician assistant, and a nurse, who work in concert with 12 members of the IT division. This team meets weekly to identify ways to improve efficiency, and then the programmers go to work to implement changes.

Automate When Possible

Reliant created a system that can automatically gather and share patient information from multiple sources, such as affiliated hospitals and health plans. This has helped them to cut down on time-consuming tasks, such as calling around to other organizations for information.

Delegate Where Appropriate

A physician’s overflowing inbox is another source of burnout. Tweaking EHR so that other members of the staff, such as medical assistants, can gather and receive information without producing a message for the physician helps alleviate this. Within Reliant’s practice, only laboratory results are sent to the primary care physician’s inbox for review, while routine consultation notes are no longer delivered directly to the physician.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Physician Burnout Costs U.S. Billions Each Year

Physician burnout is not only a widespread problem for physicians themselves, but it is also bad for business, or so found a new study published this week.

Physician burnout is not only a widespread problem for physicians themselves, but it is also, apparently, bad for business, or so found a new study published this week in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

Quantifying the toll of physician burnout has been tackled before, at least in terms of negative clinical and organizational outcomes, but the economic costs of this syndrome have not been as clear.

With this in mind, a team of researchers set out to tally the financial burden of burnout on physicians in the United States. They studied several vital measures related to physician burnout, including turnover rates and reduced clinical hours, as well as their associated costs, and used recent research and industry reports to come to a conservative, and yet, still staggering, estimated cost of burnout—$4.6 billion per year.

“Together with previous evidence that burnout can effectively be reduced with moderate levels of investment, these findings suggest substantial economic value for policy and organizational expenditures for burnout reduction programs for physicians,” the study concluded.

While it is impossible to put a price on the lives of those who so often save lives in this country, having such an overwhelming estimated price tag attached to the problem may be what is needed for health care leaders to begin to adopt initiatives to remedy this ongoing issue.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Barton Associates’ Locum Hero: Dr. Neilly Buckalew

Earlier this year, Barton Associates announced the Locum Heroes campaign, with a focus on giving back to locum tenens providers who make a difference in their communities, near and far. In response, we received more than 100 nominations, each describing incredible stories of the ways that locum providers have spent their time on and between assignments. 

Neilly Buckalew, MD uses locum tenens work to have the flexibility to dedicate her free time as a volunteer for Honduras Hope Medical Mission. As a Barton Associates Locum Hero, Dr. Buckalew will receive a personal award of $2,500 and a donation of $2,500 will be given in her name to Pennsylvania-based, Honduras Hope Medical Mission for their 2019 mission trip.

Read Her Story

 

Planning on Med School? 4 Benefits of Shadowing Doctors

by Emma Sturgis

Deciding to go to med school is a big decision. You don’t want to end up going through schooling, only to find out it’s not the right path for you. However, if you shadow doctors, you could come out ahead. Not only will it make you more confident in med school to avoid dropping out, but you could enjoy 4 other benefits:

Seeing Procedures First Hand

Knowing what kind of doctor you want to be is a tough decision to make. While you have some time in med school to figure it out, you don’t have that long. You need to understand what you would be getting yourself into with each specialty. Shadowing a doctor will introduce you to the different procedures and day to day activities you would be doing. That way, you don’t get blindsided on day one.

Understanding What the Questions on the Test Mean

If you are taking med school seriously, then you will already be getting your hands on MCAT prep materials, asking others in the field what their suggestions are, and studying every chance you get. However, it helps to have first-hand experience and see the real live application of what the textbooks say. That is one of the biggest advantages of following a real doctor around for a set period of time.

Professional Networking

If you think getting your dream job will be as simple as completing medical school and getting an offer, think again. Networking is just as important in the medical field as in any other profession. Knowing the right people can make all the difference between working at the best hospital in the city or having to move entirely.

Taking a Trial Run

Medical school is one of the most difficult things you will go through when becoming a doctor. The hours are long. The tests are tough. You will have little downtime. However, the end is worth it. However, you should verify that this is really what you want to do. Shadowing a doctor is the perfect way to take being a doctor for a trial run so you can be that much more confident in your decision.

Becoming a doctor is an exciting prospect. However, you need to plan it the right way. By shadowing doctors, you can learn the industry. You can avoid common pitfalls that others fall into. In addition, it will help you with med school itself. So give some real consideration to shadowing a doctor before you have your first day of medical school.


Emma Sturgis is a freelance writer based out of Boston, MA. She writes most often on health and education. When not writing, she enjoys reading and watching film noir. Say hi on Twitter @EmmaSturgis2.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.