For physicians entering practice for the first time, the job market has shifted dramatically in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Released this past December, a report on final-year resident employment opportunities, conducted by the physician recruiting firm Merritt Hawkins, indicated that 66% of residents in their last year of training received 51 or more job solicitations, while 45% received 100 or more.

“In a matter of two months the reverse is now true,” said Travis Singleton, executive vice president of Merritt Hawkins and AMN Leadership Solutions. “It’s a seller’s market for those offering practice opportunities to residents or in-practice physicians seeking jobs. The number of candidates per job opening we have now has never been higher in my experience.”

Read more.  

Rising Chief Resident Summit Pivots to Virtual Event

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, LUGPA will now host the August 2020 Rising Chief Resident Summit as a virtual meeting. 

What is the Resident Summit? 

LUGPA’s Rising Chief Resident Summit is an essential professional education and networking opportunity for physicians approaching their final year of residency.

LUGPA introduced the Rising Chief Resident Summit in June 2019, a full-day program dedicated to supporting PGY4 and 5 urology residents during their transition to full-time practice. The Rising Chief Resident Summit covers crucial topics from vetting employment contracts to interviewing best practices. Plus, the event offers residents an opportunity to engage with key urology leaders from some of the largest independent urology practices in the country.

• Registration is FREE (stay tuned for details).
• Attend a virtual private practice job fair.
• Network with future colleagues and key leaders in urology from across the USA.
  
  

Ready to meet prospective employers?

If you register for LUGPA’s Rising Chief Resident Meeting this year, you will have the opportunity to speak with many LUGPA groups about opportunities at their practices. Take a look at the practices that will be attending virtually.*

Advanced Urology Institute
Atlantic Urology Clinics
Carolina Urology Partners PLLC
Center for Urologic Care of Berks County
Central Ohio Urology Group
Florida Urology Partners, LLP
Georgia Urology
Greater Boston Urology
Kansas City Urology Care
Lancaster Urology
Minnesota Urology
Rio Grande Urology, P.A.
The Conrad Pearson Clinic, P.C.
United Urology 
Urological Associates of Savannah
Urology Associates, PC
Urology of Central Pennsylvania, Inc.
Urology of Virginia

* list subject to change 

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to gain direct access to discuss career prospects with the best audience LUGPA can offer. Registration details will be available soon. Read more.

How Urologists Cope with Feelings of Burnout  

Urology Times® reached out to three urologists (selected randomly) and asked them each: Do you ever face feelings of burnout? How do you cope?

"Burnout comes from the added stresses of the increasingly complex business of medicine in America," says John V. Kryger, MD, Chief of Pediatric Urology at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

"Negotiating health insurance gets more complicated, government accreditations more complex, EMRs add to the workload, and health care systems merge and increase in size and complexity while physicians play a smaller role and administrators a bigger role in determining health care...  I struggle with fighting burnout because I don’t think I’ve done it as well as some people."   

Read more.

Residents: Tell Us Your Experiences With COVID-19  

How has your resident experience been impacted by COVID-19? Have you seen an increased use of telehealth in your care setting? How effective do you think it has been? How do you think coronavirus will affect the future of independent practice and independent physicians? What more can be done for patients and independent practices during COVID-19?

With COVID-19 presenting unique and varying challenges to independent physicians as well as transforming the standard of care delivery in their practices, LUGPA believes that it is essential to capture and document the voices of physicians during this unprecedented time. "By elevating the perspectives and experiences of independent physicians, LUGPA’s members will have another avenue to advocate for themselves, one that tells their stories in a way that reaches important stakeholders like patients, policymakers and the media," said LUGPA President Richard Harris, MD.  

If you are interested in creating a short (90 second) video telling us how COVID-19 has affected you as a resident, please contact Dan Kotheimer at [email protected] to discuss options for recording and submitting your video. Videos will be shared in future LUGPA newsletters.   

Win-Win Contract Negotiations: Strategies for Urologists 

lifestyle…call schedule…geographic location…compensation…contractual obligations…

	Dr. Stringer

Already overloaded with information, urology residents and fellows are also challenged by the absence of real-world nonacademic experiences and a lack of time to gain these valuable experiences. Beyond deciding the practice setting that best suits you and your desired lifestyle is the employment contract that accompanies your decision.

At LUGPA’s 2019 Rising Chief Resident Summit, Dr. Thomas Stringer, Associate Professor and Associate Chairman of Urology at the University of Florida in Gainsville, presented Physician Employment Contracts: What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You. To help provide some additional guidance in navigating the unknown — hazardous terrain also known as a contract — read Dr. Stringer’s employment contract tips.

Resident Clinical Innovation Award

	This award is facilitated by the LUGPA Forward Committee.

LUGPA Forward, a special interest group of young physicians at LUGPA, invites you to participate in its newest resident initiative - the Resident Clinical Innovation Award.

Launched in March of 2020, the Resident Clinical Innovation Award was developed to recognize and celebrate the innovative clinical work of urology residents that promotes and has the potential to enhance quality clinical outcomes. Suggested topics include:

• New or innovative technology or devices
• Process and/or operational improvements using innovative approaches
• Implementation of effective approaches to diagnose, treat or prevent disease using innovative techniques
• Transformative programs or projects in care delivery and health promotion

The award winner will receive a cash prize of $1000 and special recognition at the 2020 LUGPA Annual Meeting in November.

To learn more about the Resident Clinical Innovation Award, please visit the LUGPA website here.  Entries are due July 15.  

Questions? Please email Rachel at [email protected] or call (312) 794.7788.

Share This Newsletter with Your Resident Peers  
Forward this e-mail and encourage others to join LUGPA's mailing list

Enjoying this newsletter? Forward it to other urology residents to let them know about all LUGPA has to offer. 

If you are not the direct recipient of this e-mail, sign up for future issues of LUGPA's Resident Newsletter here.  

See Who is Hiring in LUGPA's Career Center

LUGPA's Career Center website is a place where urology residents can post their resumes, apply for jobs and get job alerts.

The site also features: 

Career Coaching - Coming from a variety of professional backgrounds, LUGPA's Career Center offers certified coaches that have the experience, training, and expertise needed to help you achieve your career goals.

Resume Writing - LUGPA's Career Center offers experts who are ready to critique your existing resume or help you craft a document that gets you noticed.

Reference Checking - Get your references checked, confidentially and professionally so you can be confident your past employers are helping, not hurting, your candidacy.


Visit the Career Center now: careers.lugpa.org.

LUGPA Media Monitor provides a curated view of relevant news from recent headlines. Our editors provide pithy comments to provide context, clarification or even points of contention to what is being popularly reported.

Experts Weigh in on Post-COVID-19 Telehealth Rules and Policies

With telehealth adoption at record levels and both providers and patients calling for continued coverage, federal and state governments are under pressure to make those emergency measures permanent. Congress is under particular pressure to pass laws expanding telehealth coverage, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has signaled a willingness to review and likely revise its guidelines for Medicare and Medicaid coverage.”

Editorial notes from LUGPA leaders: LUGPA definitely supports this initiative. - David J. Ellis, MD

More Nuanced Approach Needed to Fight COVID-19 

In an op-ed in Life Science Leader, John McManus, president and founder of The McManus Groups writes: “As the data on COVID infections and deaths are tabulated, it has become clear that a more nuanced and targeted approach is needed to protect the vulnerable and allow the rest of the country to reopen and get back to work, school, and the day-to-day activities that make life enjoyable. Protecting the elderly, particularly those in nursing homes, should be the paramount public health priority, but continued and indefinite shutdowns of schools, camps, and activities of the young are not relevant to protecting the public.”

Editorial notes from LUGPA leaders: 

Spot-on op-ed by John McManus, one of LUGPA's lobby groups in DC. - Lawrence Gervasi, MD

Agree completely. There is no doubt that a targeted approach to high risk groups versus the population as a whole would help the country re-open and stay open. - Mitchell Hollander, MD

Recent Urology Trials Published in NEJM 

LUGPA Past President Neal Shore, MD, and other LUGPA member co-authors had three trials published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) recently.

• Enzalutamide and Survival in Nonmetastatic, Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (PROSPER trial)
• Olaparib for Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (PROfound trial)
• Oral Relugolix for Androgen-Deprivation Therapy in Advanced Prostate Cancer (HERO trial)

Editorial notes from LUGPA leaders: Our intellectual leader Neal Shore has been busy! The recent read out of the PROSPER trial shows that enzalutamide increases the overall survival in patients with nonmetastatic castration resistance prostate cancer. - Lawrence Gervasi, MD