Why do hospitals and surgery groups use locum tenens surgeons?
There are a variety of reasons. For most hospitals, it is due to a shortage of surgeons who are available to take emergency call. In recent studies over 70% of hospitals reported inadequate on-call coverage in trauma & emergency general surgery, orthopaedics and neurosurgery. Many hospitals have turned to locum tenens surgeons to fill in the gaps while they work to resolve coverage issues with their current panel of surgeons or until they can recruit an additional permanent surgeon.
