Last Updated on June 27, 2022 by Laura Turner
Kathie M. Horrace-Voigt, DO, is a locum tenens practicing rural medicine, she has worked in AK, NV, TX, MT, CO, and OR. She and her family reside in Oregon.
Horrace-Voigt grew up in Alaska and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in geography (Arctic regions) from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (1994). She then passed her Certified Nurses Aide Course in Vancouver, Washington (1994). Over a decade later, Horrace-Voigt earned her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) Erie (2006), and served a residency in family practice at Bay Area Family Medicine in Corpus Christi, Texas (2009). She is board certified in family medicine (licensed in Texas, Oregon, Nevada, and Alaska) and osteopathic manipulation.
When did you first decide to become a doctor? Why?
I decided in high school I wanted to be in medicine. I was always fascinated with pathology and the disease process, how the body worked. I wasn’t a great candidate in my early 20s and had many a rude awakening including being told that women don’t belong in medicine. I got married young and things got put on hold when my mom died right before I graduated college. It wasn’t until I got a CNA license and started getting some medical experience that I knew medicine was my calling and I definitely didn’t want to be a nurse. I had plenty of physician friends from working in the hospital, and they rallied to help me with the admissions process.
How did you choose the medical school you attended?
I applied to medical four times, in 1992, 1999, and both January and June 2000. Because I lived in Alaska, I applied broadly to both MD and DO schools initially, then just DO. Many of the doctors I worked with said that I would have the best chance with DO because of my non-traditional status and I was older and I had lived a lifetime before applying (the best thing that ever happened to me). I applied to LECOM because I had friends who lived in Erie and I would have someone I knew there. In the end, they were the only school that interviewed me. I was waitlisted and ultimately declined in May 2000. I talked with the admissions office and was told I didn’t need to change anything, just apply early. So I applied the fourth time on June 1 when the cycle opened, only to LECOM, and was ultimately accepted. At the time there were rolling admissions because applying wasn’t online yet. You saved all your information onto a disk and mailed the disk to the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine.
What surprised you the most about your medical school studies?
The sheer volume of the material and how fast the material was covered. It was very scary to go back to school after being out for so long. I was surprised at how much I had to study just to pass. It amazed me how other students had no shame and would do anything to get ahead, have a better grade, be higher up in the class, etc. It was interesting that there really wasn’t a concept of being nice to one another. [Being nice] was always viewed as an ulterior motive to get ahead somehow.
Why did you decide to specialize in locum tenens work?
It started after I was suddenly forced out of my second permanent job. It just came about as a necessity to keep the money coming in. When I tried to make the third permanent job work and ended up resigning, it seemed clear that I just did so much better personally as a locum, where I didn’t have the establishment hanging over me telling me how many patients I had to see, being forced to type my chart notes, having no scheduling freedom, etc. I wasn’t happy with my income and was working a 70 hour week, getting paid for 40 just to keep up on the charting.
If you had it to do all over again, would you still become a locum tenens physician? (Why or why not? What would you have done instead?)
Yes, I would probably never have applied for a permanent job. The pay difference is just so far apart. I have the freedom to work when I want and am off when I want. I usually go where there is a huge doctor shortage so I’m not told I have to see a certain amount of patients in a day. The schedule is reasonable and I get treated very well personally and professionally.
Has being a locum tenens physician met your expectations? Why?
Yes, I love everything about it. I work when I want. If a site gives me any grief, I don’t have to deal with it, the locums company works it out. I can get on a plane the next day and move on without any recourse. I get paid an amazing amount of money. I take as much time off as I can afford. It’s no cost to me–my travel, housing, and rental car get paid by the site. I don’t have to worry about malpractice costs. There are more sites than are doctors available, so there is always work.
What do you like most about being a locum tenens physician?
The flexibility of schedule and the pay. There are so many jobs out there and such a huge need that I generally can get a job in a week with a month to credential. That’s pretty quick.
What do you like least about being a locum tenens physician?
Most of the sites I go to are fairly far from my husband and my kids. It’s always nice to try to work close enough to be able to go home for the weekend. However, those jobs don’t pay as well as those farther out and more rural. Sometimes I have to make a choice of taking a weekly pay cut and being home more or working to maximize my income and going home for a large chunk of time when the kids are out of school.
What was it like finding a job in your chosen career field? What were your options and why did you decide what you did?
Family Practice is a hot commodity right now. There are currently more jobs available than physicians to fill them. Once I put my CV out there, my phone literally rang off the hook. During residency when I was first looking, I had my husband field the calls and set up the interviews. I had a big poster board to compare the offers and packages. In that initial search, I connected with a few recruiters who I really liked and were very aggressive in getting a good package. Whenever I’m in the job market I call them again so I have more control of where my CV goes.
I never really decided to go into family practice. I didn’t match into general surgery and ended up scrambling into a traditional rotating internship in Texas. After the intern year I was able to land a surgery spot in NYC. That turned out to be a disastrous mistake and after a week of crying, I left and went back to Texas to finish family practice.
Describe a typical day at work.
Usually, my time at a locums site is more urgent care type of patients. I see the overflow since the regular providers are booked weeks out because there are so few of them. I also take call and generally cover four days of ER 24-hour coverage but have done up to 11 days in a row. I put patients in the hospital if need be. I read my own x-rays since it may be a full day before I get an official report. I also take care of any issues in the nursing home locally. I may see 15 to 25 patients a day depending on need and who walks through the door. Every day is different, but I do my own biopsies, casts, splints, joint injections, diabetes management, WIC physicals, sports physicals, lots of OMT–especially for back strain and migraine headaches, dental abscesses, sick kids with ear infections, general medication refills. Whatever walks through the door. (I don’t do OB, pre-natal care, or well-child checks.)
On average: How many hours a week do you work?
I work from 50 to 75 hours a week. It all depends on how busy the ER is.
How many hours do you sleep per night?
I only sleep four to five hours continuously at a time. I try to rest at least seven hours total overnight.
How many weeks of vacation do you take?
I take 12 to 16 weeks a year.
Are you satisfied with your income? Explain.
Yes. I have plenty of income to pay my bills and do lots of great things with my kids. I don’t worry about money anymore.
If you took out educational loans, is/was paying them back a financial strain? Explain.
Yes, I took out the maximum loans. My payments are not a strain. I make enough in 1 ½ days of work to cover my monthly student loan payment.
In your position now, knowing what you do – what would you say to yourself when you started your medical career?
Don’t be quick to take the first job that comes your way. I would have done locums first to find a job that fit me and my personality and needs so I could walk away easily if I hated it. I always thought being a doctor, I would be autonomous and I didn’t realize how many people have control over you and your life in a contracted employed position.
What information/advice do you wish you had known when you were beginning medical school?
I was naive and bought into the hype that as a DO you did not need to take the United States Medical Licensing Examination even if applying to MD residency programs. The whole process of the match was so overwhelming you kind of go through it in a daze. I never expected having to scramble and didn’t have a plan for not matching. I hadn’t planned very well for the whole matching process, as I was caught up in parental responsibilities and trying to coordinate rotations to suit my family rather than strategize to be seen for potential residency programs. It was difficult to know where to rotate when I was in a school on the East Coast and I wanted to get back to the West Coast, but there weren’t really rotation sites in locations I envisioned myself living. It all worked out in the end but not without a lot of tears and stress along the way.
From your perspective, what is the biggest problem in health care today? Please explain.
Too many people uninsured. In rural medicine, almost everyone is on Medicaid and they use the ER as their personal clinic. Primary care has a huge burden because of the insurance issues, as many specialists will only see patients will “real” insurance and shut their services off to Medicaid/Medicare. The reimbursement is so low, it’s not worth their time and they can’t pay their overhead otherwise. Not sure how the enforcement of the new Obamacare laws will be implemented when you have families who barely have enough food and gas money, let alone pay for health insurance.
Where do you see locum tenens work in 10 years?
I think there will always be a need for primary care, especially in rural areas. The working poor are desperate for good care. There are not enough PCPs to cover the shortage, so I don’t see locums fading any time soon.
What types of outreach/volunteer work do you do, if any?
I don’t, since I already take care of the poorest patients.
Do you have a family? If so, do you have enough time to spend with them? How do you balance work and life outside of work?
Yes, I have two kids aged 17 and 14. They are engrossed in their school and lives. They made the choice after I resigned from my last job about not moving again because they loved their school in the area we live in. They are ok with me being gone for weeks at a time. I keep in touch via FaceBook and texting. If they need homework help, they email me papers to proofread. My husband stays home and is now retired so they have a parent home all the time. I schedule my work contract to be off when they are off during the school breaks. I do at least six weeks off with them in the summer. My kids are well travelled and worldly. They appreciate it when I’m at home but don’t have an issue with me being gone. When I’m at work, I’m completely immersed in the job. Before I leave, I have all my charts and signatures done, so there are no loose ends since many times I won’t be returning.
Do you have any final piece of advice for students interested in pursuing a locum tenens career?
Locums works if you understand that most of the need is in rural areas of the country. Don’t limit yourself to a single state license and expect to always be employed (I have four active licenses). Not every locum company has contracts with all sites. Have at least two companies you work with for placement, three at the most, otherwise you have too many sites vying for your time. Most sites expect a two-month minimum commitment, sometimes more just because of how much hassle it is to credential a new doctor. That doesn’t mean you can’t take a break in the middle of it. Sometime I work six weeks then take two weeks off and then work another six weeks, etc. Usually the site will work with you. Don’t be afraid to say what time you need off.
Juliet Farmer is a writer with over 19 years of experience in various industries and a contributor to numerous consumer and trade publications and websites.
I enjoyed reading this interview.. But I am left wondering: how and why does working with the uninsured/the poorest patients pay so well? who pays for it? Anyone knows?
the government dolls out a certain amount to clinics/hospitals cover the loss of taking care of the uninsured. So I guess the tax payers pay for it. This is one of the reasons why healthcare is such a big part of the GDP.
Government pays for uninsured to be seen in the ER, and by government I mean tax payers, and by pays for I mean goes into debt because we can’t afford it.
Yes.
damn locum tenens sounds like a lucrative career, but I’m not if I could handle moving around every month.
great interview regardless.
Most sites I go to want a 3 month minimum commitment. I don’t generally travel to different sites every month. My travel goes back and forth home to see my husband and kids. I generally go to 4 sites or less a year. Most times if a site likes you on the original assignment they will offer to extend.
I’m planning on a locums career for reasons mentioned in this article, but primarily because after 15+ years of dealing with the “politics” of working at the same place year in, year out, I’m just sick and tired of it all. My kids will be in college so I LOVE the locum option!
30 hours of charting on top of working 40 hours? Is this typical of employee FM?
I’ve seen surveys that show average FM income is $180,000. Is that true? I assume rural locums would double FM income?
What is the job market and incomes for urban areas?
I thought the article was very interesting. Haven’t read an interview from a locum tenens physician.
Only part I really didn’t like:
What types of outreach/volunteer work do you do, if any?
I don’t, since I already take care of the poorest patients.
You take care of the poorest patients but get paid handsomely for it. (wish I could bold that). Outreach/volunteer would be to work at a clinic for FREE or volunteering your time seeing patients, etc etc. Just because you’re seeing poor patients, doesn’t make you a saint. You can still volunteer or do outreach. It really seemed the focus of the interviewees life was money. Don’t get me wrong, money is important to almost everyone (regardless if you admit it or not). But that comment really rubbed me the wrong way.
I disagree. She stated she works 50-75 hours a week taking care of patients. Completely regardless of how much money she makes, she’s probably doing more good than most people do doing that. If someone works 50-75 hours a week completely away from their family, I think they have every right to use their time off for themselves to recharge and not to be judged negatively for it. Honestly, if I worked that much, I think I would need that little extra time to myself in order to provide the best care I can when I am working. Burnout would be inevitable otherwise.
I agree with you. I’m not saying that everyone needs to do volunteer/outreach. I’m completely fine if you don’t do it at all. Your free time is your free time. But don’t give the reason for not volunteering because you have a high paid job (yes, with a lot of hours) who helps poor people. Just say that you don’t volunteer. Being paid handsomely to help the poor does not make it a volunteer position, by definition.
I think the reason she provides is still valid. She works in an area that has extreme difficulty attracting physicians, working with a population that obviously has limited resources. Due to the impact she has with this indigent population, and their need for physicians like her, I think it’s a perfectly valid reason to choose not to volunteer but instead work more – even if she’s paid well for it. She’s not saying it’s a volunteer position; she’s open that she is paid well for working with this population. I guess I can see how that could rub people the wrong way, but I think her reason makes perfect sense given the context.
Actually, she IS a saint for treating the poor.
And maybe you should think about how much it costs tax payers when the poor are NOT treated until their illnesses become MUCH more serious.
You mention costs to tax payers.. you think paying someone extremely well to ‘substitute’ in these areas is a financially sound plan? This is a very short-term fix for a long-term problem. Hiring someone to work for a month or two at a time is not the solution. She is not a saint; don’t throw around words because she happens to treat the poor. Many people choose to go into rural medicine to help that demographic. And these physicians know they won’t get paid well. They are the saints. Not the person who is helping the poor because she is getting paid very well for it.
Her time is better spent treating patients or tending to her family than handing out blankets in the ER like a typical pre-med “volunteer”.
I wouldn’t say she’s “paid handsomely”. I would say she’s “compensated somewhat fairly”. Not many docs would want to spend 8 months of the year in the middle of nowhere, away from their family. Other specialties are paid more for less work that doesn’t require them to forgo their families.
Yes, she is volunteering because she’s doing a job most docs don’t want to do.
“Yes, she is volunteering because she’s doing a job most docs don’t want to do”
I totally disagree with the volunteering part because she has stated that she did not like her permanent jobs. This is a choice for her and she loves her job. Don’t pass it off as volunteer work because this is nothing in comparison to the physicians who actually live in rural areas and are facing the low reimbursements and the BS paper work. These physician even moved to these rural areas knowing these problems!
Just because I got paid for my time doesn’t mean the clinic didn’t make money. I still had to do my charting and coding, etc so the clinic could bill whatever insurance, etc. They made a lot of money due to proper coding so it goes both ways.
I think you guys are reading into the whole reason I didn’t volunteer. You have to understand that where I was located, I was usually the only doctor on the island and there was no place to volunteer. The clinic I worked at was Federally funded by multiple sources and most patients were on sliding fee scale – so essentially a low income clinic. I worked from 65-80 hours a week covering the clinic, the ER, the hospital, and the nursing home. I WAS TIRED. Just wait. When I was starting out I had all these high hopes of volunteering overseas, etc. I just don’t have time or the energy at this point with my current debt load. I would be the last person to say I was a saint so please stop over reading my article answers that were typed late at night with a tight deadline.
Thank you for interviewing. I appreciate your perspective.
Dr. Voigt,
You are truly a class act. I know very few people who would handle this kind of unfounded criticism the way you just did. It’s clear that your knowledge of how to interact with people, particularly those who disagree with you, is a tremendous asset.
I guess that shows that even if you have to retake all of your science intro classes 4 times, retake the mcat 3 times, and then not match that you can still become a doctor. props for sticking to it though – I don’t know if I could do it.
I don’t think I’m being a hater. I took the MCAT twice and will also be attending a DO school this year. I’m just saying that there aren’t that many DO interviews on here, so it would be nice to have more of them and ones that don’t give the allo kids a reason to jump up and down with glee.
She’s still a doctor and saving lives, can’t hate on that.
The tone of your original message definitely gives off the wrong impression. It reads off like a back handed compliment. People can get the wrong impression from anything and everything. It is up to the person reading to determine if they want to take a lesson of persistence and determination from this interviewee’s story.
What a great interview! Very informative!
I first met Dr. Kathie when she was a resident in Texas. I knew from the moment that I met her that she was something special. She has worked so very hard for everything she has achieved. How many doctors do you know started their introduction to medicine as a CNA? She has been there, cleaned out bed pans, bathed patients & washed filthy bed linen. She has a perspective that comes from life experience.
Many of the new residents have never worked a job other than school a day in their life. They have gone from home, to college, to medical school with relative ease. It is not as easy for them to truly understand what it is like to work really, really, hard and to be really sick. She has more than paid her dues… If I ended up in an ER out in the middle of nowhere I certainly hope that Doc Kathie would be who I would see.
Thank you sooo much Denise. Yes, we had some great times in residency. Nice to see my fan club following my progress. 🙂