During your White Coat Ceremony in medical school, you likely recited the Hippocratic Oath, where you swore to do no harm to your patients and uphold the integrity of medicine. For the past 7 to 11 years of medical school, residency, and possibly fellowship, you have put your patients first above all else, to the detriment of sleep, family, friends, and hobbies. At the cusp of being an attending, you have finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel. While you will continue to give your patients the utmost care, it has finally come time for you to also care for yourself. After years of hard work, it is critical that you secure an employment agreement that works for you, not against you.

While you have been taught to prioritize selflessness and beneficence, unfortunately employers in big practices, hospitals, and corporations have not been taught this. Even as a newly minted attending physician, bosses and employers can still view you as a commodity or resource to be exploited. In addition to guaranteeing your compensation, your employment contract is your main opportunity to set the expectations, set the boundaries, and set yourself up to succeed.

Your contract is a legal document that can have many ramifications. Even one word or comma can make a big difference (click here for a famous non-medical example). When you're dealing with an agreement that involves hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of your life, there is much at stake. Hiring a lawyer knowledgeable in physician employment law is critical to make sure that there are no "catches" in your contract. "Catches" can include negative or ambiguous terms, unfair apportioning, or even illegal practices. At the Mayer Law Firm, we will go line by line of your contract to find the "catches" and highlight for you the good, the bad, and the unacceptable.

There are many important aspects to a physician contract we will analyze: