A Locum’s ScrapBook: Getting Started

Editor’s Note:

Locums Tenens is defined as:

Locum tenens, roughly translated from Latin, means “to hold a place.” Locum tenens perfusionists fill in for other perfusionists on a temporary basis for a range of a few days to up to six months or more. When a healthcare employer faces temporary staffing shortages due to vacancies, illness, or other causes, they hire locum tenens perfusionist  to fill those vacancies and maintain patient care quality.

The following series is forwarded to give people a rough idea of a different approach to our profession, with pluses, minuses, and the perspective of working in this capacity.

This week marks the one year anniversary of being a locums, and for me?  It works very well.  I enjoy the challenge as well as the level you need to stay at to maintain a sharp edge in an unfamiliar environment.

Enjoy 🙂

To view the entire series- click here: A Locum’s ScrapBook.

Frank

 Genesis:  How & Why Am I A Traveling Perfusionist?

By:  Frank Aprile, BBA, LP, CCP

Depending on where you enter perfusion in the career timeline in your life, your goals for yourself will have different imagined endpoints and their subsequent challenges.

Married with family?  You probably won’t want to travel.

Young and single?  With out a doubt you are filled with excitement and imagination in terms of what you offer to the profession as well as what you hope to experience from it.  No doubt the clinical arena is a challenge to be mastered, many pathways are available, some of which include working over seas, in remote areas in your own country, or perhaps as part of a cutting edge academic institution, and the very distinct opportunity to get involved in mission work- and help the helpless that would otherwise never be served.

In it for the money $$ ? Well I won’t get into that, because it is a poor motivator, and you are most likely better served pursuing a different calling.  PERfusion begins with the same 1st three letter as PERseverance.  Optimism and idealism most likely trump the pursuit of money in this profession.

Next:  Preparing to Travel as a Perfusionist …

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