What happens if you take a job in a new place and the city isn’t a good fit?
It would be best if you could tough it out for two to three years but don’t stay for ten if you are miserable. I had to give up a great teaching job at a North Carolina college to move to Florida so my pediatrician husband could be a medical director. I'll admit -- I was a basket case the first year. But by the second year, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Rather than focus on how unhappy I was, I started to work on a PhD in English. I’m always happy going to school and it turned out to be a great career move for me.
I stayed in Florida for 12 years because it was the right place for my children to graduate from high school and I got a great job. When the second child left home, my husband began networking and interviewing to try to get us back to Charlotte, NC. My boss in Tampa said I could work remotely from Charlotte just as I had from Orlando. A physician at an ACPE cocktail party said, “Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again, but he had a lot of problems. I think you can.” She was right.
Let's say you are unhappy in your new city. What can you do? Recruiters say 70-90 percent of all jobs are gotten through networking. Think back to people you went to medical school with or trained with. Where are they now? Would you want to live there? You can’t just come out and ask for a job, but you can make a phone call, catch up, ask them what their medical community is like and say, “I’d love to live in your area. Would you let me know if you hear of any opportunities?” Also regularly check ACPE’s job bank and the websites of any recruiters who are listed in our job bank. Something might pop up in your favorite city.
Just be careful: Recruiters tell me you can make one quick move if the place or chemistry is not right. But if you make two, employers begin to be suspicious of your staying power.
