Ask questions you are most anxious / hesitant / unsure about

• What’s your current practice like now?
  • How did you make the decision to switch to pure call shifts?
  • How big is your patient load?
  • How many days per week do you work at each job site?
• How much money do you make on a call shift?
  • Billing tips for call shifts
    • What can you bill / not bill for?
• How does picking up call shifts work?
• What was the practice you had before switching to pure call shifts?
  • What’s the process like to close a practice for another?  Duration to close practice?

Networking / maintaining connections 

What type of practice do they have? 

What they found challenging in R5 / most stressful 

Experience in other centers

Billing tips 

• If we are billing correctly, how much should we be making? Ie hourly rate, daily rate, salary?
• Any billing tips?
• Tips for billing for refugees? No shows? Out of province? On call?
• Incorporate vs not?

Exam prep 

JOB

• What is your current practice like now?
  • How did you set up your current practice?
  • Anything you would do differently?
• How did you find a job? More under the table vs formal?
  • How do you know when a job offer is sealed and dealed? 
  • How early did you find a job / consolidate a job in R5? 
• How do locums work in Calgary? Length, common areas to locum?  Ie process of finding a locum, confirming a locum?  Is it formal vs more under the table.  How did you approach under the table finding a job process? 
• What types of jobs in Psych do you think offer the most flexibility ie choosing certain days on/off?
• How have you navigated the process of taking time off for vacation, coverage etc as a new staff?  Is there an implicit hierarchy structure? 
• For considering/choosing jobs, have you had to make considerations in terms of what it would be like to leave that practice if you had to? 
  • What needs to happen for you to close a practice / hand it over to someone else?
• Have any of you looked into ARP? What does that entail? Eg payment, obligations within the ARP, etc? Ease of leaving ARP? 
• Making new initiatives in Psychiatry department ie new role / position / gaps in system
  • Any worries about end?
• How available should you be for an ideal outpatient practice? ie ideal time commitment and number of days at clinic in correlation to patient load? What was your stance on the working environments of the different outpatient clinics?
• How did you find the culture of different work settings? Different outpatient clinics?

MENTORSHIP

• Who do you go to receive feedback?
• Who do you go to to bounce questions off for patient cases you are uncertain of? What about in settings where that culture does not exist already?

MISC QUESTIONS

• What type of jobs are available?

QUESTIONS TO ASK EMPLOYERS

• End date?
• Expected patient load?
• Ability to take time off?

Treat R5 as if you’re already a staff physician

• Act as if you’re the only mental health professional out there for this patient. Be proactive in anticipating outcomes and creating contingency plans.
• Know who to ask for help, resources, and consults for difficult cases
• Know how to bill
• Know how to deal with teaching junior residents
• How to deal with professionalism conflicts