Cedar City and the Interview Trail

Finally, our pictures from visiting Cedar City a month ago! Look how pretty Cedar City is:

Last month we drove to Utah so Jared could have a casual interview with a family practice clinic in Cedar City. Prior to this I had done some extensive research on all the family practice clinics in every city across the state of Utah--big cities, tiny rural towns, and everything in-between. I made a list comparing each town's population with the number of family physicians in that town, and I determined that a handful of towns looked to have a definite family physician shortage. This is what my brains are used for now haha. I actually love doing stuff like that. Anyway, Cedar City topped my list. From the numbers, they had what looked like half as many family physicians as they needed in a rapidly growing community. 

The reason I did this research in the first place is that we would love to move to Utah after residency, but Utah pays their family physicians quite a bit less than surrounding states--enough less that we would be living pretty tight trying to chip away at Jared's med school debt for several decades. Oftentimes rural communities that have a doctor shortage will pay doctors more, so we thought we'd explore that possibility in Utah. Fortunately, Cedar City fit this bill AND seemed like the exact type of place we would love to live. It's beautiful, within close proximity to several gorgeous national and state parks, has lots of fun college town stuff going on, lots of mountains and hiking right in town, is close to sunny St. George and also a ski resort, and is within 3 hours of family. So Jared e-mailed his resume to every family practice in Cedar City, and pretty soon we heard back from one of them!

They were interested in meeting Jared and invited him to stop by if he was ever in the area. We made arrangements to drive down over a long weekend, dropped Jack off with my parents for the day, and spent an afternoon exploring Cedar City. The weather was still pretty cold and everywhere was closed because of quarantine, so basically we just drove around and looked at neighborhoods, did a short hike, and Jared had his "interview."

 The doctors he met with at the clinic were really nice! Genuinely great people. He knows because he talked to them for three hours. I know because, much to my surprise, they asked Jared to call me to come up and meet them. This is the outfit I was wearing, oops:

When Jared called me to come up to the clinic I was like, "Uh...I'm wearing my hiking clothes?" But Jared assured me that that was actually impressive to them, because it showed I was interested in the outdoors and getting to know the area. Thank goodness I'd at least had the foresight to curl my hair and put on some makeup. I went up and met the staff and some doctors and got to do an interview in yoga pants. That was gr8. It actually went really well. They really liked Jared and told him they'd love to have him come do a rotation and get to know them even better.

However, when all was said and done, me and Jared agreed that we probably wouldn't actively pursue the job for now. The salary number they pitched Jared was barely more than he could get paid in Utah Valley. Since our top priority with Jared's next job is to make enough to chip away most of his debt, we just don't think we could justify it. Bummer--we really like Cedar City and the drive there is beautiful. But if we were willing to settle for the number they gave us, we'd probably just go straight to Utah Valley for our next move. Still, we're keeping them on the back-burner until we've explored all other job locations we're considering. More on that later! Anyway, it was a fun day and hopefully we'll be able to spend more time around Cedar City in the future. Here are some unrelated pictures I haven't posted yet from Jack dying Easter eggs in Utah:

I'll finish with some final updates on where we are in Jared's job search currently. Jared was hoping to sign for his first post-residency job by the end of his second year of training (by this July). Unfortunately, most clinics have paused their hiring processes due to covid-19. It's not a huge deal since Jared still has a full year of residency training left to figure it out, but we still would love to know where we're headed next as soon as possible. Our top contender right now is Evanston,, WY. Jared knows and loves the people and clinic there, already has a loose job offer (a good one), and it's less than 2 hours from family. It feels like a really good option for our family.

Jared has also been in touch with a hospital in Elko, NV. They are in desperate need of family physicians, and it's good to get multiple offers in this industry, both to know what's out there and for negotiating. This hospital sent Jared a packet full of brochures and info a few weeks ago and has been trying to get him there for an interview. Mom tells me that Elko is a hole of a town, but we've never been and we're open to giving it a chance. Technically Evanston is a hole of a town too, but for our next job we're open to "holes of towns" if the offers are right and they're close enough to family. Plus, Elko has some really pretty mountains nearby. I'm excited to go see them for ourselves. Jared will be able to take a few days off in June, so he's been e-mailing back and forth with Elko to see if he can set up an interview then.

I think our last consideration for Jared's next job is to keep poking around in and around Utah Valley to see if any interesting offers pop up. We'll keep in touch with the doctors he knows there up until we feel like it's really time to get signing! A recruiter has given Jared's resume to clinics in Nephi and Spanish Fork. We'd love to interview there. So far no word from either clinic, but we'll wait and keep checking in.

So anyway, that's where we are now. I'll check in on the subject again if/after we visit Elko next month!