When Should a Physician in Fellowship Start Looking for a Job?

Not sure when to start your job search while in the middle of a fellowship? Timing can be Tricky—and it often depends on the length of your program. These days, fellowships lasting two to three years are becoming the norm, especially for highly specialized fields. The era of quick one-year fellowships is fading fast. Regardless of how long your program lasts, my best advice? Start your job search early. Exploring opportunities and securing the right position takes time, and the search process is entirely different from negotiating and finalizing a contract. Beginning early can give you a competitive edge and open doors you might otherwise miss. Don’t wait—start looking now, and you may uncover the perfect opportunity before your training even ends.

In this guide, When Should a Physician in Fellowship Start Looking for a Job is explained with Clear steps and tips.

There is no harm in going out and seeing what the market offers. If you are in fellowship, you are likely in a high-demand specialty and will probably have an easier time finding jobs. However, the opportunities are less when you are in some subspecialty. 

How to Conduct a Job Search for Fellows — When Should a Physician in Fellowship Start Looking for a Job

Tips on how I would go about looking for jobs. One, you need to find the area where you want to live. Suppose you’re entirely open to living wherever. In that case, you can generally find a great deal if you have to live in a specific area, maybe due to a significant other. Or you’re involved, engaged, or married to another person in medical training. Then you need to follow them, or they’re in a program and will start, and you need to be there. 

Well then, obviously, that limits your options if you’re in one specific city. But if you’re wide open, you will have more opportunities. But as far as when to search, do it right away. What are the downsides of identifying a position and signing a contract? Let’s say you’re in a three-year fellowship. You sign a contract in year one. Circumstances can change. So you could have some family issues, an illness in the family, maybe you had kids in the interim, and that changed your thinking of where you want to be, perhaps you were planning on moving back home and then decided that you didn’t want to do that. So, if you sign an agreement and then want to back out of it, there are complications. it’s not impossible to get out of it.

Physicians in fellowship programs should consider initiating their job search approximately 12 to 18 months before completing their training. Starting early allows ample time for exploring opportunities, conducting interviews, and completing necessary administrative processes such as licensing and credentialing. For more detailed information, refer to NEJM CareerCenter’s job search timeline.

Additionally, St. John Associates emphasizes that early engagement in the job search process can provide a competitive advantage, especially for those targeting specific geographic locations or specialized roles. Learn more by visiting St. John Associates’ job search timeline.

Reach Out to Recruiter When Applying for Work

I mean, no one’s going to want to employ a physician that doesn’t want to be there. But there may be some legal complications associated with terminating a job that you haven’t even started yet. In my experience, the sooner, the better. Ways of finding jobs, communicating with people in your residency program, and other doctors in your fellowship across the country, and physician recruiters. These are excellent places to start in your career. Some employers hire a recruiter to find specific candidates. You can reach out to the recruiters, and you won’t have to pay anything. The employer will have to pay that fee. Those are all good options as far as how to find a job.

Other Blogs of Interest

• Can a Physician Back Out After Signing an Offer Letter?
• Can a Physician Back Out After Signing an Employment Contract?

How Much are Fellowship Physician Salaries?

What is the average salary for a physician in fellowship? At the basic level, after a physician graduates from medical school, they go into an internship and then into a residency program in their specialty, and some specialties require extra training. And that’s what’s called a fellowship. Depending on the specialty, most fellowships last between one and three years. And after that, they can then move on and have an employment relationship where they can practice in their specialty. 

Average Physician Resident and Fellowship Salary

Is there a huge difference between residents and fellowship salaries? The answer is no. There isn’t. The average resident salary is around 63,000 a year. Now, that’s the average. So, there will be some lower than that and some higher. It’s specialty-dependent.

I think the average for family medicine, the physician in training in the residency makes around 51,000, and then maybe some of the surgical specialties can be in the high 60s. But you logically would think, alright, if I’m going to get through residency and move on to my fellowship, I’ll make more money. And the answer is not really. The average fellowship salary is about the same as the average resident salary. Now, the fellowships, anyone who must move into a fellowship is on the higher end of a specialty. So, if the range is between 50 to 70, they’ll be higher towards the 70 range. But there will not be a significant jump between the money you make as residents and the money you make as fellows.

Moving Expenses and Bonuses for Fellows

One word of advice if you are coming out of a residency or fellowship and starting your career. When you have a new job offer after you are either done in your PGY-3 or your fellowship, people in training are not flush with cash. And so, almost any employer will offer the physician a signing bonus, relocation assistance, or both. But most of them will have language in the contract that states they will either reimburse the physician once they start or they will offer the signing bonus with their first paycheck after they’ve begun providing care. That can burden some physicians who don’t have $10,000 to $15,000 to move. 

A Physician’s Contract Must Have This Written in Their Agreement

Suppose a physician has a family and they’re living in New York. If they get a job in California, it can easily be $15,000, and sometimes having to pay that out of pocket at the beginning can be an enormous financial burden. So it would be best if you made sure that any of these languages are in your contract:

• Your contract will state that the employer will pay the moving expenses directly to the moving company before the move.
• You will get that money before moving so that you can use that for the moving expenses.
• You can use a portion of the signing bonus to do that.
• And then most contracts will have language that states that if the physician leaves within the initial term, they’ll have to pay back a prorated amount of those bonuses, which I think is fair.

If they’re going to outlay the cash up front, they certainly don’t want a physician to leave after a few months and take all the bonuses with them. A physician in fellowship is around mid $60,000. I think 47% of physicians have over $200,000 in student loan debt. And then, if you think that they’re working 70 to 80 hours a week, which some of them are. It Works out to be like $15 an hour. Which is tough to support a family at that point in your career.