"I've been interested in staying in the southern part of the state since I went to med school. I'm from Springfield, but I spent all my summers as a camp counselor in southern Illinois and I 'caught the bug'," says Dr. Hank Konzelmann, a second-year family practice resident in training at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Carbondale.
Konzelmann was one of 270 medical students and residents who attended the 1996 Doctors Fair, held in a tent north of the School's main building in Springfield. Thirty-seven organizations from around Illinois attended the 18th annual fair during fall semester in the hopes of convincing soon-to-be physicians their facility is the best place to start a medical practice.
The Doctors Fair was started by SIU's School of Medicine as part of its mandate to help Illinois meet its need for physicians. The fair complements the School's emphasis on training primary care physicians. SIU has been nationally ranked for four consecutive years as a leader in the percentage of graduates entering primary care practice by the Association of American Medical Colleges (1992-95) and in 1996 by U.S. News and World Report.
Konzelmann wants to stay in southern Illinois, an area of Illinois that faces some shortages of health-care providers, and the fair will likely help him meet that goal. He has until the summer of 1998 to decide.
"I've got a neat 1870s house in Alto Pass (pop. 417) with a big porch, lots of flowers and beautiful view," he explains. And my wife is from there so I have every reason to stay."
"I'm looking for a practice where I can do what I'm trained to do, but where there are enough specialists nearby whom I can turn to for help on difficult cases," he explains. So far he has looked at practice opportunities in Carbondale, Anna, Herrin and Murphysboro.
Konzelmann is considered a 'hot prospect' for recruiters like Sue Ridgway of the Southern Illinois Healthcare (SIH) system, based in Carbondale. She attended the fair, sharing a double-size booth with two colleagues, Dr. Sunil Sinha, a Carbondale internal medicine physician, and Nancy Muzzarelli, an administrator from Shawnee Health Service and Development Corporation, which is based in nearby Carterville.
"We recruit together because all of the physicians we recruit are family practitioners who work at the SIH hospitals. We have several small groups of physicians who practice in six southern Illinois towns and have hospital privileges at three SIH hospitals -- St. Joseph's in Murphysboro, Memorial in Carbondale and Herrin Hospital in Herrin," explains Muzzarelli.
"We don't have any openings now but I view the Doctors Fair as an opportunity to make regular annual contacts with the medical students because I'm sure we'll have openings in the years to come."
The annual fair gives physician recruiters a chance to talk with resident physicians and medical students from SIU and other Midwest medical schools. Promising candidates receive invites for follow-up visits; eventual offers can include guaranteed salaries, furnished offices and help with school loans. Most organizations participate in SIU's annual fair as part of ongoing recruitment efforts, particularly those with health facilities in smaller Illinois communities.
"When we started the fair in 1979, we saw more of the smaller towns doing their own recruiting. Today, with the impact of managed care increasing, one organization often recruits for multiple communities," says John Record, fair organizer.
"As the market for physician services continues to change, the fair becomes even more important for specialists since their opportunities are shrinking. For primary care physicians, the opportunities are greater but the nature of those opportunities is changing as more health systems develop and with them more salaried employment situations," he adds.
Sonja Resse from BroMenn Healthcare in Bloomington (pop. 51,900) has been coming to SIU's Doctors Fair for three years.
"We've recruited a doctor every year we've been here. We find this a very fertile field. The students and residents who come up to us have determined that they like the Midwest and they want to practice here," she says. "We've met a number of people here we will stay in contact with. This is more than a one-time shot -- it's an opportunity to establish a rapport over time."
The fair is hosted by Memorial Medical Center and is held in cooperation with the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians, the Illinois Hospital and Health System Association, the Illinois Rural Health Association, the Illinois Department of Public Health's Center for Rural Health and the Sangamon County Medical Society.
