Depending on how long you have been out of training, your curriculum vitae (Latin, meaning "course of life," CV for short) may fit onto one page or have the heft of a small book. Either way, it is important to keep this record of your education, training, experience, and professional accomplishments up to date.

Physicians often have questions about what to include and what to leave off their CVs. Here are tips to help ensure that your CV makes a positive impression when you are seeking locum tenens engagements.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. That rule especially applies to phone interviews for locum tenens positions. Unlike approaching a permanent-practice opportunity where you might engage in several phone interviews followed by an on-site visit, the locum tenens evaluation process usually occurs during the course of a single phone conversation. During this brief encounter, it is important to make a good first impression, and equally important to use the time to make sure you will be comfortable stepping into the temporary practice opportunity under consideration.

Before the phone interview, your recruiter will have made a provisional "match" between you and the hospital or clinic you are considering. You will already know a reasonable amount about the scope and requirements of the assignment, and the person interviewing you will have reviewed your CV and references.

Physician staffing can be a fickle business. In today’s fiercely competitive market where loyalty runs thin, staffing agencies will bend over backwards to attract and keep a physician in their locum tenens pool or a hospital as a client. So when a physician or client insists that you sweeten the pot by providing workers’ compensation, what’s a locum tenens agency to do?

The answer is simple: To quote a former first lady, “Just say NO!” And if the physician or client challenges your frugality, explain you are simply trying to protect the independent relationship for all three parties to the transaction.

For decades, physicians have engaged in locum tenens practice for a variety of reasons at different times throughout their careers. Newly minted residents unsure about where they want to settle or what type of practice setting they might enjoy use locum tenens as a way to explore options. Mid-career physicians take locum tenens engagements to see how other practices operate or when they are between permanent jobs. Semi-retired doctors enjoy that locum tenens allows them to keep a hand in medicine without the hassle of staying fully immersed in practice.

Today, given the unstable economy and that healthcare reform is under serious discussion in Washington, physicians are looking at locum tenens for new reasons. Here are a few scenarios that locum tenens agency recruiters are seeing unfold.

One of the many benefits of practicing as a locum tenens physician is that the hassle and expense associated withliability insurance is largely a non-issue since it is an industry standard that locum tenens agencies provide practitioners with insurance. Still, if you are considering practicing as a temporary physician, you must consider certain issues and ask questions to make sure you are well taken care of in this regard.