Guffanti's job = locum tenens

It does not seem too terribly important now, but I think I have finally figured out what Stephen Guffanti's job was.

His supporters called it "substitute doctor". We were left wondering why he couldn't hold down a job. First he was an emergency room doctor up on the central coast than a workers comp doctor in San Marcos, etc. It turns out that there is a term for what he was doing. Our physician friends call it locum tenens, standing in the place of another.

None of this matters now that he is thankfully off our board and no longer damaging our children's education or our children's chances to be in fully functioning, uncrowded, new schools. We should all be patting ourselves on the back for our important job of retiring Guffanti. It was a job well done. Let's hope no one else like Guffanti is ever elected again.

We have only one ANTI public education member on our board left, Jim Gibson. With a bit of good luck we can rid ourselves of him a year and two months from now. In the meantime, Gibson by himself, can no longer damage our abilities to purchase land and build new schools.

What a stupid California law that requires four out of five trustees to acquire property by eminent domain!

When Guffanti was there to vote with Gibson, the two of them were able to block the purchase of the cheap, level, fully graded fifty acre site behind Strawberry Hill. The next best site was the hilly, 18 times more expensive land at Melrose and Highway 76.

Gibson and Guffanti cost VUSD taxpayers at least forty million dollars if we count increased grading costs, increased construction costs, permit problems, at the Melrose site that were not problems at the CHEAP Strawberry Hill site.

Let's all be glad Guffanti is gone and Gibson can harm us no more.

Here is the article describing what a locum tenens physician does:
Read the article in its entirety at the URL below:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/707979?src=mp&spon=38&uac=86387MV

Here are the first few paragraphs:

From Medscape Family Medicine > Physicians Are Talking About...
Doctors for Hire -- The New Case for Locum Tenens
Nancy R. Terry
Published: 09/01/2009

Plagued by issues of managed care, mounting paperwork, malpractice costs, and diminishing reimbursements, a percentage of physicians are stepping away from traditional practices to explore alternative career options. Some have chosen to hang out a new shingle: doctor for hire.

In previous years, locum tenens (a Latin phrase meaning "to stand in another's place") positions were typically filled by early career and semiretired physicians, but recently more midcareer physicians are choosing temporary assignments. A 2008 survey of 12,000 doctors, most of them primary care physicians, reported that 7.5% expected to work as locums in the next 3 years.[1] In 2009, the number of physicians working as locums is anticipated to increase by 16% over that of 2008, according to a report by the Braff Group, a healthcare merger and acquisitions company.[2]

For some physicians, working as a locum is a bridge between full-time assignments or a way to experience how medicine is practiced in various parts of the country before choosing to move to one area. For others, locum tenens work is a way to supplement retirement savings hit hard by the recession. Yet, for a growing number of physicians, locum tenens work is their preferred form of medical practice.

Contributors to Medscape's Physician Connect (MPC), an all-physician discussion board, talk about the pros and cons of temporary medical work and what to expect when doctors take their skills on the road.

One MPC contributor turned to locum tenens work because he became disenchanted with the medical politics he encountered in his hospital position. "As an independent, I'm attended a significantly greater degree of freedom to concentrate on patient care."

For an obstetrician/gynecologist, locum tenens work offers greater job satisfaction. "I've spent a lot of time in the Midwest, mostly at small hospitals. The assignments help me remember why I chose to be a physician."Locum tenens provides a flexibility of schedule and an opportunity to travel that some physicians find appealing. One MPC contributor comments that 6 months out of the year he works a steady job and the other 6 months he travels the world. "The pay is far less for the latter, but the life experience outweighs it."
"The travel to and from your home town becomes a drag after a while," comments a critical care physician, "especially if you have a family or a significant other." The obstetrician/gynecologist agrees that being away from her husband can be trying, but adds, "The flip side is we continue to feel like newlyweds."

READ THE REST AT THE WEB ADDRESS FOUND ABOVE.