4 tips for physicians to evaluate practice culture during a job interview

When interviewing for a position, sometimes it’s easy for physicians to tell whether the hospital or practice will be a good fit. But rather than relying on instinct alone, evaluating an organization’s culture can be a crucial element to the interviewing process.

Jim Stone, president of the Medicus Firm and the National Association of Physician Recruiters, offers these four tips for physicians to guide them in their decision process:

1. Understand expectations – “Get your arms around what the expectations are in terms of practice style and in terms of workload, patient volume, and procedures,” says Stone. “All of those things play a significant role in how happy a physician is going to be in that environment.”

2. Talk to other employees – “We always encourage physicians to inquire with the other doctors who are already there as to why they chose to practice there,” says Stone. “What do they like about practicing there? What has kept them there? Those kinds of questions will typically give you some pretty good insight about what attracted other physicians.”

3. Ask about your predecessor – “That’s an important thing to understand. There are lots of things that drive physician turnover," says Stone. "Physicians are increasingly mobile. It’s not like the old days where they set up shop somewhere and practice there for 40 years. They move around a lot more than they used to for professional, personal and compensation reasons. But that’s definitely an appropriate question to ask."

4. Find out the demand – “Are they replacing a physician who left the community or is this an additional physician that they’re adding and hoping that the patients come? Is the patient volume there to support the addition of this doctor? These days I think hospitals and physician groups are savvy enough to understand the importance of having a verifiable and documented need for a physician,” Stone says. 

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