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Doctors recruited for new hospitals

Building new hospitals in Stafford and Spotsylvania counties includes building their medical staffs

Date published: 7/12/2008

BY JIM HALL

The Stafford Hospital Center and the Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center are under construction in the northern and southern parts of the Fredericksburg area.

And officials at the two hospitals also are busy building their medical staffs.

Both hospitals will depend on doctors who already live and work here and wish to expand their practices.

But the hospitals also are courting doctors from outside the area, who they hope will want to work in a growing, prosperous region.

MediCorp Health System, parent company of the Stafford hospital and Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, recently launched a new Internet jobs site aimed specifically at doctors.

Its physician recruitment page features a slide show set to the music of Mozart, and boasts of the area's competitive salaries, attractive benefits and "sophisticated medical community."

But the candidates it seeks are a select few.

One job opening is for a neurologist with an "interest or competence" in treating stroke. Another is for a neurosurgeon to help with the planned Level II trauma service at Mary Washington.

MediCorp created the site because today's physicians are Web-savvy, said Robert Lively, executive director of physician relations.

"That's where they do their searching," he said.

Lively said the site is still under construction, with more vacancies to be added. Even so, this week it included job openings in 13 medical specialties, from cardiology to dermatology.

Some of the vacancies are posted by local doctor groups, recruiting in anticipation of the opening of the Stafford hospital.

"Most doctors in this town are so busy that they just can't take on another responsibility without bringing more help on," said Dr. J. Thomas Ryan, MediCorp's executive vice president and chief medical officer.

Other openings are for doctors who will be employed by MediCorp, either at Mary Washington or Stafford.

The Stafford hospital will need at least 70 doctors, Lively said. This includes the in-house staff: the hospitalists, anesthesiologists, radiologists, infectious-disease specialists, ER physicians and pathologists.

It also includes physicians in the community, orthopedists and gastroenterologists, for example, who will answer calls from the emergency room.

MediCorp has started accepting applications from physicians who want to join the medical staff at Stafford. Dr. Allen Aaronson, a Fredericksburg pediatrician, leads a committee of doctors that has been meeting weekly since November to help set up the medical staff.

DOCTORS WANTED It's not clear how the opening of the new hospitals in Stafford and Spotsylvania counties will affect the doctor shortage that has long existed in the Fredericksburg area. Many local doctors are already busy and may not be willing or able to expand their practices. Some have closed their practices to new patients or take only patients with certain kinds of insurance. Many have lengthy waits for appointments. "Most of them are booked solid for months," said Robert Lively, MediCorp's executive director of physician relations. According to a 2008 study by MediCorp, the region needs at least 39 doctors, including at least 17 primary-care doctors. "You name it, we can use it," said Dr. J. Thomas Ryan, MediCorp's executive vice president and chief medical officer. The MediCorp study breaks down the regional need as follows: Primary care (family practice and internal medicine): 15 OB/GYN: 3 General surgery: 3 Pediatrics: 2 Cardiology (non-invasive): 2 Neurology: 2 Dermatology: 1 Endocrinology: 1 Gastroenterology: 1 Hematology/oncology: 1 Maternal/fetal medicine: 1 Orthopedics: 1 Otolaryngology: 1 Pain management: 1 Plastic/reconstructive surgery: 1 Pulmonology: 1 Rheumatology: 1 Urology: 1

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Date published: 7/12/2008

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