Health care employers increasingly are using locum tenens to fill physician jobs while they continue seeking the right candidate for a permanent hire. For some physician specialties, though, employers rely on locum tenens as a stopgap measure more often than they do in others.
As physician residents and fellows begin their job searches, those who want to explore a temporary role before settling into a long-term position can use data amassed from thousands of physician searches to learn more about the landscape of locum tenens physician jobs.
“Certainly, more organizations are leaning on locums,” said Carey Goryl. She is CEO of the Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment (AAPPR), a professional organization of internal physician and health-professional recruitment professionals. “It’s not just someone is going out on leave or someone’s going on an extended vacation. … It’s a structural part of staffing in certain specialties.”
The phrase locum tenens, which is Latin, has the definition “to hold the place of,” and in medicine refers to a physician temporarily filling in for another physician.
The “2025 AAPPR Physician and Provider Recruitment Benchmarking Report: Search Dynamics and Trends” includes information from 128 organizations that participated in the annual research study and includes details from more than 15,000 searches, 61% of which were for physicians.
The survey data reveals which physicians most often are seeking locum tenens jobs and which types of physician roles tend to be filled with locum tenens while permanent searches are underway.
Filling the gaps in care
Many health care employers bring on physicians in a locum tenens capacity while they’re seeking a permanent candidate for the job.
In fact, a 2022 survey by physician recruiter AMN Healthcare found that nearly 90% of hospitals, medical groups and other health care facilities used locum tenens hiring to fill physician and other nonphysician health care professional roles while permanent searches were under way.
Usage of locum tenens, however, varied by specialty.
AAPPR data from in-house recruiters showed organizations used locum tenens in 15% of their searches for physicians in primary care. In searches for physicians in surgery specialties, they used locum tenens in 10.7% of cases. For nonsurgical specialty physician roles, locum tenens was used 21.6% of the time.
Among the physician specialties for which there were at least 50 physician searches, the top five specialties in which organizations used locum tenens to temporarily fill the role were:
- Anesthesia—65.4%.
- Pediatrics—47.5%.
- Urgent care—41.5%.
- Hospital medicine—30.1%.
- Emergency medicine—24.4%.
“You're going to see a lot of locums in the specialties where health organizations don't have the time to let there be a gap,” Goryl explained, noting that high demand might play a role in whether a physician search results in locum tenens usage—ether temporarily or on a more long-term basis.
AAPPR data showed that some of the specialties that relied heavily on locum tenens during searches are also harder to fill in general.
In physician searches for anesthesiology roles, their data showed 62.5% of the positions remained unfilled after a year, with the remaining still open, on hold or canceled at the end of 2024. In pediatrics, that number of unfilled roles in 2024 was 46.3%, and emergency medicine was 45.2%. Of the urgent-care physician searches, 42.2% were unfilled at the end of the year. Only 33% of the positions in hospital medicine were still unfilled.
“You start to see physicians almost changing the mindset of how they want to be employed,” Goryl said.
Physician job seekers should explore the JAMA Career Center®, which presents physician career opportunities, news and information relevant to the full spectrum of medical practice. Search for physician jobs by specialty and location or browse all of the physician jobs by specialty.
Increasingly common usage
More physicians in all specialties and at all stages of their careers appear to be working in locum tenens roles, either in lieu of or as a supplement to a full-time permanent role.
AMN Healthcare estimated in 2019 that 52,000 physicians were working as locum tenens, double their 2002 estimate, saying in a 2024 report that the numbers had likely risen even more. In 2024, AMN surveyed 589 physicians and nonphysician health care professionals who had worked in a locum tenens capacity at some point in the previous 18 months.
The top five specialties of those surveyed were:
- Primary care specialties—11%.
- Psychiatry or behavioral health—11%.
- Hospital medicine—10%.
- Radiology—9%.
- Internal medicine subspecialties—7%.
- Surgery—6%.
- Emergency medicine—3%.
- Oncology—3%.
- Anesthesiology—2%.
“I can't think of a particular specialty they don’t work in,” said Brian McKillop, president of locums at AMN Healthcare. “There could be a gap somewhere. As a peak happens within a particular facility or hospital setting or clinical setting, they'll come in and help fulfill that peak. Or there could be a gap in coverage within a certain clinical space.”
Goryl said that, increasingly, younger physicians—even those who recently completed residency or fellowship training—are considering locum tenens for the flexibility.
She said they are asking themselves, “Where do I want to go? What sort of environment do I want to work in? How long do I want to be in that environment?”
If you are in the market for your first physician job after residency or fellowship training, get your cheat sheet now from the AMA.
A stable part of physician searches
AAPPR research showed that in 2024, the most recent year for which there was data, organizations used locum tenens as a stopgap in 16.4% of physician searches. As of 2023, organizations used locum tenens to temporarily fill roles in 9.2% of searches for physician positions.
During searches for physicians and nonphysician health professionals, locum tenens was used by 15.8% of organizations in urban areas, 5.2% of organizations in suburban areas and 13.9% of organizations in rural areas, AAPPR data showed.
Goryl said that recruiting professionals at many health care organizations are increasingly aware of the extent to which they rely on locum tenens physicians to work in open roles that health care employers would prefer were permanently filled.
Ultimately, though, she said, “locums are here to stay.”
If you’re deciding on your first physician job out of training, learn more with the AMA STEPS Forward® toolkit, “What to Look for in Your First or Next Practice. Evaluate the Practice Environment to Match Your Priorities.” It is enduring material and designated by the AMA for a maximum of 0.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Read up on AMA CME accreditation.
