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10 | EYEWORLD DAILY NEWS | APRIL 7, 2024 ASCRS ANNUAL MEETING DAILY NEWS " T his is probably one of the most meaningful symposia we're going to have," said Zaina Al-Mohtaseb, MD, introducing the "How Do You Find Your Dream Job?" symposium, which was a collab- oration between the YES Clinical Committee and ASOA. "It is going to cover the things we don't learn in residency and fellowship that are so important." Frank Bowden, MD, described his journey into private practice, which began 35 years ago in Jack- sonville, Florida. He said when he was ready to enter the medical workforce, there were not many op- portunities available in academia or to join another private practice. This accelerated his plan to figure out a way to get started, which involved an office-sharing relationship where he paid the owner a percentage of his collections. At this time he said he learned to embrace comprehensive eyecare, after initially thinking he would be a cornea specialist. In the early 1990s, Dr. Bowden said he joined a newly forming ophthalmic specialty eye group as a cornea specialist. In this group he said he "learned all the things you should look to avoid" in a large practice. When the group eventually dissolved in 2000, he began his own practice. "That was a good experience from the standpoint that I had sev- eral years of understanding practice management and staff management. I assembled a team of advisors and accountants and attorneys. … It made it manageable, feasible for this to happen," he said. Recruitment styles James Murphy, MD, said he found his job out of fellowship in 2017 from word of mouth. Albert Cheung, MD, said he was looking for a private practice with some academic affilia- tion and sought these opportunities with a recruiter and through word of mouth. "Certain practices were only available to me if I used a recruiter," he said. Patti Barkey, COE, said she prefers to not work with recruiters because she has found many of them are paper pushers. "It's just a differ- ent game," she said. "There isn't as much of a connection there." Ben Seals, MBA, COE, said his practice has an internal recruiter and he has found that physicians already en- gaged with a recruiter can make the process longer and more difficult. Assessing practice types and culture Mr. Seals said a lot of different prac- tice models exist and it's important for physicians to do their homework. He said the candidate should be in- terviewing practices as much as they are interviewing you. Dr. Murphy said when he entered practice, he didn't know what his dream job was. He said it's important to understand that this is often an evolving target. Ms. Barkey suggested shadowing practices to gain a sense of what you like and don't like. "Having gone through private and academic practice, it's key to acknowledge how you've grown and how what you wanted in your first position might have changed," Dr. Al-Mohtaseb said. "In your first job, you really figure out which of those things you really want to do, and I would say culture is the most import- ant thing." How do you assess culture? Dr. Al-Mohtaseb said to ask physicians what their goals are for the practice. "You want to know what makes each surgeon tick. You don't have to be the same as the other surgeons but there has to be some sort of collabo- ration." Dr. Bowden said he's found that new doctors often don't understand who they are or what their vision is out of training, but he advised evaluating the enthusiasm and energy from the support staff and seeing if there are clear pathways of communication established with the administration side. Setting expectations Ms. Barkey said full transparency is so important. We start out with shadowing and there is a focus in her practice on standards. She also em- phasized later that it's important to know how many patients the practice will expect you to see in a day. Mr. Seals said there is a produc- tivity ramp, and he said physicians should understand what this is. Dr. Murphy, who inherited a practice, said he started out seeing 30 patients a day. This was in con- trast to the 100 patients a day he was seeing in fellowship, so he used his earlier spare time to build a referral network. Symposium offers insights on finding your dream job Left to right: Dr. Al-Mohtaseb, Mr. Seals, and Ms. Barkey serve as panelists in this session moderated by Janna Mullaney. They offer their professional insights to young eye surgeons just starting out in practice. Source: ASCRS

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