"Great Opportunity! Live in scenic Nofuckingwhere! Incredible Salary!"And they always have pictures of stunningly attractive men and women, with amazingly cute children, doing outdoor activities. Or attending the theater. Or doing anything but wading through a huge pile of charts with a lobby full of patients. They make the jobs sound so wonderful that you wonder why the previous doc left.
These things have all sorts of catchphrases about remarkable salary, fast-track to partnership, limited call, great public schools, outdoor activities, cultural events, etc. Usually it runs something like this: "Practice in a beautiful area, where you can live 5 minutes from the beach, mountains, and international opera house. World class schools in an area with absolutely no crime, drug problems, or pesticides. Enjoy year-round skiing, golf, wind-surfing, fishing, kayaking, and snowboarding. Call schedule is 1 in 365, with no hospital coverage. Earn $175 billion dollars a year and a generous program to help you pay back your med school loans, with a fast-track to partnership."
So, as a courtesy to other medical professionals, I've waded through these things and collected the most commonly used phrases, and now offer a translation:
"World Class Medicine": (which world? Neptune?)
"Directorship position": You're the only doc for 500 miles.
"Practice without limits": Patients will push the envelope like you wouldn't believe.
"Short drive from recreational opportunities": Not that you'll ever have time to go, but you can drop the kids off on your way to work.
"Theater events": The high school kids put on "Li'l Abner" in the fall.
"Low Crime rates": Everyone has a gun, and shoots on sight.
"Invigorating river nearby": We're downstream from a sewage plant.
"Unique patients": Inbred families with webbed fingers.
"Fine shopping": We have a Walmart AND a Target!
"Fine local cuisine": Whoppers, Big Macs, AND Wendy's"
"Wholesome community": Minorities kept out at gun point.
"Join a growing practice": You're it.
"Moving bonus": Biff will come help you unload your truck
"University town": ER is full of drunken fratboys.
"Physician-friendly hospital administration": And you can see Bigfoot here, too. Pigs also fly.
"Competitive salary": You'll make more than you would at the local McD's. But not much.
"Generous benefits": Secretary has a bowl of M&M's on her desk.
"Cultural offerings": Office fridge hasn't been cleaned in years.
"Topnotch school system": Most kids finished 8th grade.
And my favorite:
"Year round activities": What does that mean? Hell, cleaning my house is a year round activity.
35 comments:
OMG, this post was so funny! I'm on a dating website and I see the same phrases over and over on women's profile pages.
Like "I live life to its fullest" usually means "I spend all my money and have no thought for my future."
Hilarious!
Doc:
Sounds like the ads for traveling nurses!
My personal fave: wonderful blah-rated (pick any scale that sounds office) facility with whatever nursing area (pick that too) where nursing input is valued.
Translation: show up, get crappiest assignment (because everyone knows travellers are rich!), and work nights in an area where the "stab 'em and slab 'em" (as my friend calls them) occur just as you're leaving for work and when you're done.
And that nursing input part? Just be quiet, show up and leave not one minute over after we dump on you.
Priceless...no thanks. I'll be a Hotel nurse, instead.
I lost it at "cultural offerings"
When we were just looking at setting up practice, hubby fell for one of those. In North Carolina. In the middle of nowhere.
'Cause raising good Jewish-atheist kids would have been so easy in the middle of nowhere in North Carolina. I refused to go.
In retrospect, ya just never know.
When we were just looking at setting up practice, hubby fell for one of those. In North Carolina. In the middle of nowhere.
'Cause raising good Jewish-atheist kids would have been so easy in the middle of nowhere in North Carolina. I refused to go.
In retrospect, ya just never know.
This is great! Just what I need on a Monday morning. Thanks for the laugh.
Love it just, love it.
What no religious facility? Oh ya, that's right, it would be the barn/schoolhouse/religious facility. And maybe , just maybe, your house is in the back.
mm
Oh god, I just died laughing. I get zillions of these emails every day.
Thanks for the laugh! I'm a Physical Therapist and also get those mailings by the truckload. And I enjoy pondering what they really mean myself; if it's so great, why are they spending so much money on recruiting?!
You just have to love the code.
Sounds like the phrases used to entice IT workers during the DotCom boom. A lot of people ended up working 18 hour shifts in very nice locations.
Wow, no comments? Dr. G are you alive?
LOL!!! I love these, I grew up/went to school in a very very rural area (Think driving 2.5 hours for the nearest major grocery store/any kind of shopping). You'd be surprised at the amount of Doctors that take up those "Great" offers only to get out of the contract etc as soon as possible.
My thoughts, if you don't want to live in the middle of butt-F*#% no where don't listen to the "Great" offers!
xx
Jaxs
I think you missed your calling. You should have been a comedian. Maybe when the kids go off to college you could moonlight as one for extra bucks!
It's the same for nursing recruitment. If it sounds TOO GOOD to be true......it's usually a hellhole.
But if you every want to practice neurology in the Florida Keys, I have a sneaking suspicion you'll fit it JUST FINE with the locals......
Hahahha---as a rural kinda gal I appreciated this on many levels.
One of the docs I worked with in the Arctic had his business cards made up which proudly stated that he was the Chief of Staff for XYZ Health Centre.
Yup he was. The Chief. And the staff.
"Short drive from recreational opportunities": This means, to me at least, that there are several "recreational" drug dealers nearby, eager to sell you the latest concoctions from their home meth labs, etc.
When we were just looking at setting up practice, hubby fell for one of those. In North Carolina. In the middle of nowhere.
'Cause raising good Jewish-atheist kids would have been so easy in the middle of nowhere in North Carolina. I refused to go.
In retrospect, ya just never know.
LOL at 5 minutes to mountains AND the beach.
That reminds me...
I went to one of those state-sponsored art programs the some summer in high school and found out 'beach' did not always mean a body of water of the ocean varity.
The young long islander me was confuzzled when one day, the director of the program announced a trip to the beach. Beach? But, but, that's five hours away. Turns out, in upstate ny, a man-enhanced lake shore with trucked-in sand is a beach.
So that mountain and beach just means a hole in a field with water, and the mound of dirt from the hole digging is the mountain.
Outstanding translations!
I think all this type of material is written using the same PR manual.
Dr. Grumpster is da best! This rocks. i will post this on the fridge next to the bin in which we recycle all these fabulous job offers.
I remember going through that sort of mail when I did data entry at my uncle's practice while I was in school. It's like a big game of who can lie the most...and it's nearly impossible to decide who's winning. LOL.
ibukdone is fine with me. please keep on blogging though.
"Year round activities" = trying to find another job so that you can get the hell out of there.
Perfect for the outdoors enthusiast! = Middle of absolutely nowhere. You will be checking for bears between the house and the car. (Alternate version is - Opportunity to practice wilderness medicine! Really. I saw this one last week. Because, y'know, that's just what you want to see... on a psychiatry recruitment flier.)
Family-friendly work environment: Your family is welcome to come down to the clinic and eat dinner with you. We don't mind at all.
I laughed so hard reading this. I read an ad my very small, very rural hometown hospital was trying to use to recruit an ortho surgeon. I never would have guessed what an amazing town I lived in. Funny though, nobody that interviewed ever stayed.
Finally read all your posts, absolutely hilarious.
If you lower your expectations you would have our tiny town - throw in tourists in the summer, large amounts of snow in the winter minus Target and most chain stores and you've got us.
i agree with the post about your moonlighting as a comedian. you're blogs make my day!
loves it. dr grumpy, you've done it again. especially ""Wholesome community": Minorities kept out at gun point."
ohhhhh craaap. that's why i don't do small towns- can't be the only black in town. the pointing will be endless.
We could use a couple more neurologists. "Get to be in same building as Nurse K" should be a good sell, right?
OMG! My sides hurt from laughing.
Also:
"Family atmosphere" means "everybody calls in sick all the time without getting fired." Oh, and they'll hate you for the first three-five years because you're new in town."
too funny - needs to be put on facebook
Doc, I'm sure you're fine -- but some of your commenters sure sound like nasty bigots. (Won't move to NC because there are no atheists there? W ... T ... F?)
Hmm, come to think of it, you're a bigot too. Living in the middle of Nofuckingwhere obviously creates inbred, racist idiots who shoot on sight. Very droll.
We have a position for a neurologist here in the midcoast region of Maine, in a wholesome community, University town, with year round activities (shoveling snow for at least 7 months, and getting your generator to work for the frequent power outages...), etc. etc.
All the practicing neurologist here needs to do is somehow get his partner to sign papers to release his office and patients and any shared assets...his partner who has locked himself in his home for over 2 years without leaving and without anyone seeing him, including the police who pay welfare calls to his house, after people knock on his doors and windows with no response.
Interested?
I was going to say that it sounds like our town….but we only have a Walmart…not a Target.
Post a Comment