Launching the locum pay calculator

Posted by Beat Medical

One of the great benefits of working as a locum doctor is higher pay, and the flexibility that gives you to work when and where you want.

We're very excited to release the first iteration of the medical locum pay calculator, a new feature on our website that adds another layer of interactivity to our online tools.

With this device, you can use the interactive sliders to work out how much you can make over a certain number of hours per week. You can also compare that to your current working hours and salary. The best part is that you can email yourself an hour-for-hour comparison of of your current income vs potential locum income.

Obviously, the rates are indicative only - and provide an example based on averages. It is also important to consider safe working hours when making any decision about locum work.

Click on the image below to access the locum pay calculator.....

Are locums less skilled mercenaries, who will never complete a training program?

Posted by Beat Medical

Things aren’t exactly as they seem, according to Beat Medical Director Shaun Hughston.


There are a few myths about locums which seem to have persisted, even though many - perhaps most- doctors work as a locum at some point in their career. Here are some of the most popular ones:

1. Locums are less skilled

This myth can be true, but mostly not. It really depends on the individual. The bulk of Beat Medical locums are specialty qualified, or senior practitioners with over 20 years of experience.

2. Locums are mercenaries

Guns for hire, who will work for the highest bidder?
Put this way, it sounds terribly sinister. Sure, a great benefit of locum work is that the market rate is higher than regular salaried employment. Simple economics dictate it: high demand - low supply = high price.

3. Doing locums discourages people from completing training programs

This is just not true. The workforce is changing, and many people use locum work as a gap year between junior years and training, or even as a break in the midst of a training program. With the average age of medical graduates increasing, they tend to enter the workforce with more responsibilities - and debt! Doing some locum work often helps supplement the meagre income of a registrar. And, there are some people who will simply never complete a training program. They are often the pillars that hold up the staffing of Emergency Departments around Australia.

Here is the reality of locums:

• Locums are needed because there has been insufficient health planning at government levels to ensure that healthcare facilities are adequately staffed. 
• Locums are needed because some colleges still have protectionist policies to limit the amount of trainees in their programs for less than positive reasons.
• The majority of locums aren’t necessarily doing it just for the money. When we ask people why they want to do locum work, the answers are more likely based around lifestyle, change in routine, adventure - and to develop a given skill set.

Unfortunately, there is a dodgy element amongst locums and locum agencies that has encouraged some negative perceptions by employers and the medical community about doctors who choose to work as locums for a short time, or even on a long term basis.

Next time you work with a locum, ask them what brought them there. You might be surprised.

Beat Medical offers locum jobs as as means to income, working holidays and adventures - have a look at our locum doctor vacancies to see what we have on offer.

Carol Rogers 'Accredited Professional Recruiter'

Posted by Beat Medical

Carol Rogers, the Beat Medical Recruitment Administrator, was recently appointed by the Recruitment Consulting and Services Association as an Accredited Professional Recruiter.

According to the RCSA, APRs are recognised as "experienced, ethical and skilled recruitment professionals", and are committed to ongoing learning, and quality activities. 

To achieve this status, Carol undertook over 25 hours of professional recruitment training in the last six months, and commits to maintain this level of professional development.

In the role of Recruitment Administrator, Carol is responsible for the crucial task of making sure the doctors working with us meet the standard expected by our clients, and healthcare consumers.

Carol is the third member of the Beat Medical team to attain APR status, with all team members currently working towards the qualification - demonstrating our commitment to quality service to candidates and clients alike.  

Welcoming Jake Davis to the team

Posted by Beat Medical

We are pleased to welcome Jake Davis to the Beat Medical team as a Medical Recruitment Consultant.

Jake has extensive recruitment experience across several sectors including engineering, construction, and rail. He brings excellent experience helping temporary and casual staff and employers.

Like all Beat Medical team members, Jake is undergoing an extensive training program over the next 12 months to familiarise himself with the nuances and intricacies of the medical recruitment market.

Jake moved to Australia from the UK in 2009, and lives with his partner and child on the south coast of NSW.

Learn more about our team here.

The right person for the job

Posted by Beat Medical

Beat Medical is a market leader in providing quality medical locums to facilities around Australia, and one of the keys to our success is having an experienced and qualified team.

Recently, Beat Medical Senior Recruiter Leonie Shepstone was awarded Accredited Professional Recruiter (APR) status by the peak recruiting organisation, RCSA. 

According to the RCSA, APRs are recognised as "experienced, ethical and skilled recruitment professionals", and are committed to ongoing learning, and quality activities.

Shaun Hughston, co-Director of Beat Medical said: "Leonie's commitment to professional recruitment is testament to the organisation's ethical and quality-driven culture. As a leader in medical recruitment, Leonie's APR status is an indicator to our candidates and clients that they are dealing with an organisation held to a higher standard".

All of the team at Beat Medical are expected to maintain a level of continuing professional development in order to develop and build the overall skills of the organisation, and to encourage cross-skilling and knowledge sharing. 

Leonie's appointment as an APR is the first step in the Company's goal to have all recruitment staff awarded APR status. In an evolving and fast-moving industry, just keeping up isn't enough to be the best.

Western Australia considering options for medical workforce shortage

Posted by Beat Medical

The West Australian reported last week on the growing concern about workers from regional and rural Western Australia gravitating towards cities rather than settling in their home towns. 

The medical profession is no exception, with very attractive locum rates being offered in such areas to address the critical shortage of doctors in the bush. The article reports GP locum rates of $2000 per day to entice doctors to provide their services to isolated towns.

We agree with the opinion of Wendy Newman of the Wheatbelt Development Commission that: "There is some good health planning which looks at how to refocus and provide the right resources so that we can take the pressure off a 24/7 doctor and share the load around a range of communities, rather than have one doctor in one community model,".

Many of the locum GPs who work with our agency have jobs and homes in one town, but also provide much needed services to another. This model works perfectly, by sharing resources throughout several different locations. By working with an agency, our locums find that they can focus on the work at hand rather than some of the less exciting bureaucratic processes that sometimes come with working for a number of different employers.

Why traditional medical recruitment advertising is like beating your head against a wall, and burning money

Posted by Beat Medical

As medical recruiters, we often hear variations of the same stories from our clients, who come to us after months (sometimes, years) of unsuccessful recruitment:

"I was advertising in Australian doctor, but the applications were no good"
"I had an ad on the division website, but didn't get any resumes"
"We had the job listed with a number of agencies, but didn't get any results"

It is no wonder that in the age of Facebook, Google, and Twitter that traditional advertising is just not working anymore. Think about it - when was the last time you posted an ad, and got a bunch of great applications from doctors?

As an agency specialising in recruiting doctors, we wouldn't ever dream of running a traditional advertising campaign. Not only is it a waste of time, it is like burning money. The solution to this problem is running specific marketing campaigns aimed a so many different media that it creates an overwhelming amount of attention in what you are "selling".

Imagine that GP Practice A decided to run ads through a popular medical publication, and put postings on the division and RACGP website. They sit on these for a few months, hoping that a recruitment miracle will happen. It never happens, and they speak to every agency under the sun. After 12 months, still no doctor.

What has happened in this scenario is that the marketing effort has been concentrated into the local market that doesn't want to move - Australian GPs are an extremely immobile workforce. Unfortunately, just because GP Practice A wants an Aussie-trained FRACGP, it doesn't mean it is going to happen.

The clinic across the road, GP Practice B, ran a more aggressive campaign - promoting the position on social media, relevant international medical employment websites, Google ads, large ads in GP journals in the UK and Ireland, and sent direct mail to the homes and offices of doctors overseas, and used a referral program for other doctors to promote the position for them.

The response isn't instant, but within months, Practice B have a list of qualified candidates ready to move to Australia immediately, within 6 months, and over the next few years. There is a cost to a more aggressive campaign - in both time and money. However, given the greater quality of the candidates, the continuous future stream of candidates, and the fact that the they have started a sustainable recruitment process, there is incredible value in what they have done.

It is clear that traditional advertising just doesn't work, recruitment miracles are just as likely to happen as snow at Christmas in Darwin! By considering a different approach, you will increase your recruitment throughput to levels you would have not previously imagined.

Beat Medical has a solution for Aggressive Medical Recruitment Marketing, which - compared to the DIY approach will save you both time and money. Of course, as part of the package, we take care of the back end - medical registration, visa, provider number, and so on. We will run a very tailored campaign for your practice which will find you a quality candidate faster, with the added value of over 10 years of medical recruitment expertise.

Until 20th August 2010, we are offering a 100% money back guarantee that we will find you a doctor through our Aggressive Marketing Package.  Contact us for a proposal today.

National medical registration system struggling with demand from doctors, agencies, employers in Australia

Posted by Beat Medical

Following criticism levelled by doctors, medical recruiters, and employers, the Medical Board of Australia (MBA) is reporting that they are increasing their capacity.

After failing to respond to enquiries, poor response times, lack of available documentation, and serious mistakes when transferring information about practitioners to the new national database, AHPRA has advised that they are taking action on the emergent issues.

Representatives of the Board have said that: "AHPRA’s focus continues to be on boosting our enquiry response capacity and bedding down our IT systems. By early next week, we will have doubled the number of enquiries staff whose sole priority is to respond effectively to enquiries, in a timely way[...]".

As a medical recruitment and locum agency, we are very concerned that there will be serious after-effects from the lack of preparedness that the Board has shown in the roll-out of national medical registration. Not only are the phones left unanswered, the Board has failed to provide key forms, policies, and documentation to enable us to place doctors where they are needed as quickly as we usually do.

As members of the Association of Medical Recruitment Australia and New Zealand (AMRANZ), Beat Medical are contributing to assisting the MBA to bring their service to the standard expected by the healthcare industry, and the Australian public.

As an AMRANZ councillor, Beat Medical Director Shaun Hughston is playing a key role in exerting pressure on the MBA to meet the immediate demands of medical employment in Australia. We wish to assure our clients and candidates that we are the forefront of addressing the key concerns and issues surrounding the very tenuous implementation of national registration.

Have you had a problem with the new national Medical Board of Australia? Let us know... click on "Comments" below.

Doctors responsible for Emergency Department return rates?

Posted by Beat Medical

In this SMH article published last weekend, there is an interesting commentary on emergency department return rates.

Whilst the health service responded highlighting the aging population as a major factor, the State opposition highlighted that there are many parts of the Garling report which have not been addressed - thus causing major issues in the health services.

Many of our 'inside sources' tell us that the truth is somewhere halfway between the two responses.

As a locum agency placing doctors in emergency departments, we consistently receive feedback that emergency departments are not rostered with an appropriate mix of medical staff. That is, not only are junior staff rostered on at night - on their own, there is often little backup for them to call on when the worst happens. In some cases, there is a huge imbalance between senior doctors and junior doctors. At other times, there is no doctor at all.

I imagine at this time that there are a number of health service managers being pushed to provide a response to the adverse media publicity - what do you think the likely explanation will be? Will the doctors be to blame?

Let us know your thoughts.