National Locum Tenens Week runs August 10 to 14 this year. It is the industry's annual moment to recognize the clinicians who keep departments open when the schedule says otherwise, and at a physician-owned agency it lands a little differently. We are not thanking a workforce from a distance. We have been that workforce.
The work that doesn't make the org chart
When a rural emergency department keeps seeing patients through a recruitment gap, or a hospitalist program absorbs a leave of absence without canceling admissions, there is usually a locum clinician in the middle of it. The Latin behind the term says it plainly: locum tenens means to hold the place of. Somebody has to, and the clinicians who do carry a particular kind of professional courage, walking into an unfamiliar building and being excellent by lunchtime.
If you work with a locum clinician, this week is easy
- Say the thing out loud. A charge nurse telling a visiting physician the department runs better when they are on the schedule costs nothing and gets remembered.
- Include them. Unit lunches, debriefs, the group photo. Temporary status should describe a contract, not a colleague.
- Tell their agency. Recruiter feedback travels; a facility that praises a clinician by name usually gets that clinician back.
And if you are the locum clinician
Thank you. From the team at WPA, and from the departments across the country whose patients never knew there was a staffing gap at all. That is what a well-covered schedule looks like: nothing visible happened, which means everything worked.
Curious what holding the place actually pays and feels like? Our recruiters are straightforward about both. Call 888-461-0860 or browse open assignments on our jobs page.