Locum Field Notes | A PA’s Travel Plan, A Physician’s Fresh Start & More (November 2026)

By Locumpedia Editorial

2026-11-11

Locum Field Notes is Locumpedia’s monthly roundup of first-person accounts from locum providers, curated from agency blogs. Every agency is treated identically and no placement is paid for.

This month’s accounts come from three agencies and reflect different paths into locum tenens. One clinician left a permanent role outright. Another kept a private practice and added locum work when the family budget changed. A third came to it seven years into a PA career she built the long way, starting as a surgical tech.

A Surgical PA Stops Waiting to Travel

Jackie Tank didn’t take a straight path into medicine. She left an elementary education program after about two years, became a parent young, then trained as a certified surgical technologist and later worked as a surgical first assistant. When she asked five surgeons whether to pursue medical school or PA school, all five said PA. She’s now seven years out of PA school.

Travel was the plan she’d shelved. Caring for cancer patients changed how she thought about putting things off. “So I thought, if I don’t do it now, when will I? There are no guarantees.” Three years ago, with her daughter grown, she started practicing locum tenens with a few state licenses. She now holds 16. She’s traveled to New York City, where she worked near Central Park, and currently, she’s on assignment in Rhode Island, where she has stayed longer than any other location in recent years.

Tank’s goal is to take locum opportunities for six months and travel for the remainder of each year. She advises PAs to get at least three years of experience first, know their limits, and develop independent clinical judgment. The hardest part, she says, is leaving the people she meets at each stop.

A Friday Call and a Monday Start

Dr. DiChiara runs a small private practice in Cincinnati and is raising four children, ages 12 to 18. When her husband expanded his business and the family’s finances shifted, she called Floyd Lee Locums hoping to earn supplemental income quickly.

Her recruiter called on a Friday, and she started an assignment the following Monday at a facility with an urgent need. The opportunity coincided with an opening in her own schedule. “It was divine timing.” It also allowed her to increase her surgery volume, something she’d wanted to do.

DiChiara continued running her private practice while accepting locum assignments. The additional work met a specific financial need while giving her the flexibility for a trip to Egypt that summer with her eldest son and to plan a mission trip to South Africa.

An Emergency Physician Who Insists on Orientation

Dr. Pasha spent about nine years in a permanent emergency medicine position before deciding she wanted more control over her schedule. A friend from residency who was working locum tenens suggested it might be a good fit. She started by splitting her months, 12 locum shifts and 12 shifts at her permanent job. About a year later, she transitioned to the practice alternative full time.

Pasha homeschools her 10-year-old son, so any assignment has to accommodate him, and sometimes she brings a nanny or helper along. Licensed in eight states, she can turn down work that doesn’t suit them. One of her best placements was in Los Angeles, where she completed her residency and was named Doctor of the Year.

Her first assignment fell on the Fourth of July, one of the busiest days of the year for injury-related ED visits, and there was no time for orientation. Pasha now recommends spending day one on orientation and learning the facility’s systems, taking day two to recover, and beginning clinical work on day three. “You need to insist on orientation. Don’t let it blow over.”

Read together, these are three different uses for the same arrangement. Tank is building toward a split year, DiChiara used one fast assignment without giving up her practice, and Pasha runs a full-time locum career on rules she sets at every site. Earlier editions live on Locumpedia News.