Specialty: Internal Medicine/Hospitalist
Home State: Maine
Practicing Locum Tenens Since: 2022
Getting to Know Dr. L:
Why did you first pursue locum tenens work?
During the early part of the pandemic, I had a lot of time to re-evaluate my life goals. I noticed that I needed to gain more knowledge of financial matters. So I started my journey to becoming more financially literate, and when my eyes were opened, I concluded that I could not retire comfortably based on my current savings rate. Things have to change. So I tightened my budget and decided that the best way to bolster my income would be to do per diems and locums.
Describe the most unique assignment you’ve worked.
There isn’t anything unique with my hospitalist assignments. I work in three sites, and although they’re different, they’re also similar in how medicine is practiced. However, if I have to choose, it would be the smallest critical-care access hospital where I am doing per diem work since they do not have specialists and they are also not connected to any of the bigger hospital systems in the state; thus, it is sometimes scary not to have specialty back-up and simply relying on curb-siding specialists in the other two hospitals where I work
What medical advancements would you like to see in the next 5 years?
More immunotherapies for not just advanced cancers but even for early-stage cancers. I have been a hospitalist for 13 years now. For the past 3-4 years, I have seen a gradual shift in my goals of care discussions for stage 4 cancer patients from palliative- and hospice-focused to actively treating acute issues so they can start or continue with immunotherapy. Of course, it helps that most of these new drugs are also well-tolerated and effective. I also would like to see more advancement in gene editing technology applied to fields like transplant medicine, oncology, and endocrinology.
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