When Government Gets in the Way of Recruiting

How can government get in the way of recruiting? 

When they are responsible for licensure.  And the licensure process takes longer than it should.

This is particularly the case with medical professionals who need Nevada licensure before they can practice.  Annette Wells of the Las Vegas Review Journal did a nice job uncovering the issue in an article titled: Nevada’s tough laws weed out good physicians with bad.

Many times a physician loses patience (or would that be patients:)) waiting for the process.  Other times, the opportunity to relocate passes. 

Let me share a personal experience:

One of my best friends (and a fraternity brother) from college is a podiatrist.  He has a successful practice with multiple offices in Pennsylvania.  His skills as a diabetic wound care specialist are in high demand in Las Vegas with our aging population. 

I have been sharing my incredible experience of living in Las Vegas with him for over 15 years.  He has visited on many occasions and has talked about how great it would be to start a successful practice in Las Vegas.

Well, over the last year he became more serious about this desire and took the necessary exam to start the process.  He also scouted out office space, met with several hospitals to start the process of getting privileges to practice in their facilities and even had his wife out to begin looking at housing.

His goal was to open up a practice in the early Spring and relocate his family to Las Vegas after the kids got out of school for the Summer.  The short story is – it took several more months to get his license than he expected.  When he did get his Nevada license, it was the middle of Summer and the opportunity to move had passed.

Now with his children back in school and the crashing economy, we more than likely will not get him to consider relocating for a few more years.  This is a loss to the entire Nevada community.

I imagine there are many similar situations like this.

With Nevada having one of the worst physician (and nurse) to population ratios in the country, you would think that we would give a higher priority to the licensure process.  Unfortunately,  with our Governor’s lack of commitment to health care, I imagine the situation will only get worse.