Locum tenens, Latin for “to hold the place of,” is a staffing solution that has supported healthcare facilities since the 1970s. It helps hospitals and clinics fill temporary gaps in coverage, whether due to location challenges or short-term needs.
For surgeons, locum tenens offers both flexibility and opportunity—providing the chance to practice where demand is high, explore new places, and maintain control over schedules. Here’s how to make the most of locum tenens as a surgeon.
Working with locum tenens agencies vs. going it alone
While getting started working locum tenens surgery can be daunting, the surest way to make the locums process go more smoothly is to get help from an expert. Without this support, things can get complicated quickly, tarnishing what is supposed to be an easy, lucrative, and rewarding experience. Not only are there housing and travel needs to consider when navigating a locum tenens assignment, but you need to worry about negotiating your locum tenens agreement, licensing and credentialing, and malpractice insurance. All things you have to take care of if you negotiate your own locum tenens assignments directly.
General surgeon Dr. William Barrett strongly suggests picking one company and one recruiter as your base.
Another benefit of working with an agency and one recruiter is that they really get to know you and what kinds of assignments are ideal for you. The agency has the resources to streamline the complicated details for locums surgeons.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Hubler’s recruiter makes life easier by going through all the assignments that are out there for him. “He knows what I am interested in, so when he comes across one that would interest me, he gives me a call and lets me know about it, to see if it fits our schedule,” he says.
When an agency is helping with all of these details, all that is left for surgeons to do is file their taxes and procure their health insurance (if needed). And while paying one’s taxes can be a little intimidating at first, locums surgeons can write off many things they need in order to do their assignments such as expenses related to travel like gas for driving, car payments or rentals, food while traveling or on the job, as well as home office needs, and equipment like cell phones or laptops.
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Locums surgery as a cure for burnout and restoring work-life balance
When it comes to scheduling, Dr. Hubler says surgeons have significant demands on their time. “As a semi-retired surgeon, it’s hard to retire and quit with few hobbies outside of work to fill that space, especially when I still want to be engaged in my field and mentor younger surgeons.”
Locum tenens allows Dr. Hubler to practice medicine on a part-time schedule that allows him to get exactly what he wants out of his working time and a strong sense of purpose without the full-time commitment.
A desire for change can come before retirement age, though. For orthopedic surgeon Dr. Steven Weissfeld, he wanted a change because he was working unsustainable hours with high patient loads and complicated administrative and bureaucratic burdens. Too much of this for too long impacted his home life, and he finally decided to make a change.
Switching to locums tenens surgery gave him more power over his schedule, better earning potential, and the opportunity to indulge his desire to travel. Because locum tenens surgeons don’t have to manage administrative tasks, he was also free from that burden and the bureaucratic issues he’d had in his permanent position.
Locums surgeons spend more time where it matters
In addition to restoring work-life balance, general surgery locums can help keep things nimble when life happens. If family needs arise, or something changes in your personal life where you need more flexibility or need to be in a certain place, locums surgery can be a great option.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Vishnu Potini needed to find a way for his kids to be settled in school. “I also was looking to transition from one practice to another, so to give me more time to find a new practice, I wanted to do more locums. Part of that was to be able to see different practices, how they operate, and to get a better sense of how different places work, too,” he says.
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General surgery locums offers flexibility and work-life balance
Locums can also help surgeons who feel professionally stuck where they’re at, but who can’t move practices because they’ve got place-based obligations like kids in school, family members who need care, or a partner who is established in their profession. For these surgeons struggling to feel fulfilled and challenged, locums surgery assignments can allow them to practice their specialty at a high level without a long-term commitment requiring relocation.
For physicians like general surgeon Dr. Joan Pelligrini, building a much-needed trauma service in rural Maine, fresh out of residency, came with challenges, among them raising a family in that isolated geography. “I did that for 15 years, and then after 15 years, my youngest graduated high school, and at that point, I had a little bit more freedom and started thinking, what can I do at this point?”
With locums, she could stay in her practice while gaining new experiences in her field and collaborating with other surgeons in other places.
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Earning more as a locum surgeon
Some general surgery locums might argue that the best part of working locum surgery is that by filling a much-needed role, surgeons can negotiate for competitive pay, and with the help of a savvy recruiter, it’s even easier. Whether you’re dipping your toe into locum tenens work to earn supplemental income alongside a permanent position or making the leap to solely working as a locum tenens surgeon, it can be surprising how convenient and lucrative it can be.
“I started doing locums while I had my full-time job to supplement my income and pay my student debt off quicker,” says Dr. Ali Chaudhary, a surgeon from Pennsylvania.
This financial reality helped him realize locums surgery could do more than supplement his income—it could be his primary source of income.
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Knowledge sharing as a locum surgeon
While travel, flexibility, and pay draw many physicians to locum tenens, another perk is that in different hospitals, surgeons may get to pick up new skills or learn what kind of work structures they enjoy. This can be especially useful for younger surgeons fresh out of residency who are still getting to know themselves and what they want out of a practice. Doing two or three assignments in different offices or settings, such as the Indian Health Service, rural clinics, and other cities, can help locums surgeons figure out where they want to be.
For surgeons who have been in the game for a while, locum tenens assignments can be a way to pick up new skills or impart some to others. General surgeon Dr. Michael Cormican looks forward to this element of new locum tenens assignments.
“I enjoy dropping into other places and seeing how things run. I enjoy seeing different sides of things, different hospitals, and getting to know different people. It’s kind of fun,” he says. “Seeing how other places do things and then trying to impart my ways to different places. I’ve been lucky enough to be trained in some really, really good places, so I can give some of that to other people.”
You already have the skills. Locums gives you the flexibility to use them—on your terms.