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You're staring at a 40-page contract.

A handful of clauses do most of the damage, and the ones that cost the most usually don't have a dollar figure anywhere near them. Here's what to question before you sign.

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Validate

One Number Decides Your Paycheck, and Most Doctors Can't Name It

I built and explained comp models like this one for years, so let me translate the part ...

Decide

A Great Job Can Wait a Week. A Desperate One Can't

I sent a lot of these offers in twenty years on the hiring side, so I know what the tells ...

Decide

"I Don't Want to Seem Greedy" Is a Sentence Written by the HR Department

I've heard some version of "I don't want to seem greedy" from more brilliant physicians ...

Decide

The $500,000 Job That's Poorer Than the $400,000 One

Jeff Bettag is a second-year neurology resident at Vanderbilt, which makes him exactly ...

Validate

Who's Actually Keeping Your Money?

Two physicians can generate the exact same revenue and take home very different pay. When ...

Decide

"Is My Offer Good?" A Benchmark Knows. Your Recruiter Has Feelings

"Is this a good offer?" is exactly the right question, and physicians ask it constantly. ...

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They're Not Betting on Your Weakness. They're Betting on Your Exhaustion

I understood this from the inside, because for twenty years I was the person on the other ...

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Salary Is the Least Interesting Thing on the Table

If you want to watch a room full of brilliant people focus on the wrong thing, put a ...

Decide

The Non-Compete: Same Eleven Words, Wildly Different Cage

I watched a lot of physicians initial this clause without slowing down, and most of them ...

Decide

"It's Our Standard Contract" Is the Most Expensive Sentence in Medicine

I handed physicians “our standard contract" for twenty years, so let me tell you what ...

Discover

Your First Salary Will Haunt Every Salary After It

Somewhere in your first year out of training, a number gets written down, and you ...