Who is a Good Fit For OEM?

While OEM specialists are a diverse group of people, and no single trait applies across the board, the below is a list of characteristics that either appear to be particularly common among OEM physicians or appear to make people naturally a good fit for a career in OEM. 

OEM physicians often…

• See the big picture, think holistically, and find creative ways to impact the health and wellbeing of their organization/population.  More than just seeing patients and meeting clinical productivity metrics, OEM docs often have to show value in more tangible ways, such as improved functional outcomes, reduced costs, increased productivity, increased employee retention/engagement, etc.  Seeing how health and work interact in a broad sense is really important.  
• Put in place effective policy or guidance that has an outsize role in protecting health because it affects entire populations.  While helping individual patients is satisfying, helping populations can have a broader impact on health. 
• Are very attentive to detail.  This works well as with many patient encounters in OEM, there is a very low margin for error and you only get one chance.  If you are in primary care and you don’t get the diagnosis right the first time, then the patient will probably just come back again.  In OEM, if you miss an opportunity to medically disqualify a worker in a safety-sensitive job, they won’t come back to give you a do-over.  You only get one shot, and a miss can result in substantially negative consequences.  It could be a truck driver that gets into a major accident, a firefighter that passes out during an emergency situation, a healthcare worker that goes from latent to active tuberculosis while working with immunosuppressed patients, etc.  
• Prioritize family. Being at the hospital all the time may not be so bad when you’re an intern, but being able to reliably make it home in time for dinner, as well as be home on weekends and holidays, is very important to most OEM physicians. Due to the typically very stable work schedule, OEM is a specialty where that actually happens.
• Have very good communication skills.  This may include public speaking and the ability to succinctly brief executive leadership.  It will include risk communication and the ability to develop rapport and instill confidence with non-medical personnel.  Risk communication is a particularly important skill that many other medical professionals lack.  Being able to talk to individuals and groups and effectively address their concerns and assuage their fears can pay huge dividends for any organization.  
• Value their autonomy. Being a cog in a patient care machine that relentlessly pushes for more RVUs is not something that OEM physicians generally enjoy. Most OEM specialists have fairly wide latitude in deciding how to spend their time and focus their efforts at work.
• Are very thorough and able to back up their positions effectively.  You can’t just say “I’m a doctor and I said so.”  In OEM, you usually work with a lot of very smart non-medical people who ask a lot of their own questions, not to mention the questions that come from lawyers when working in the medicolegal space.  You have to be able to back up your positions to maintain credibility and gain acceptance for your recommendations. 
• Are down-to-earth and humble. As OEM is somewhat obscure, physicians with big egos gravitate towards the bigger-name specialties. Many find that the easygoing nature, camaraderie, and almost family-like atmosphere at OEM conferences is truly unique.
• Have diverse interests. If you like to do a lot of different things, and get bored with too much repetition at work, then OEM is a great fit due to the broad variety of job opportunities and roles.
• Have good writing skills.  Many OEM docs do more writing that other medical specialists, who generally do little to none unless engaged in research or academics.  In writing policies, white papers, a plan for a new initiative, and reports for legal cases or for management, you have to be able to back up your positions with objective evidence and data, convey key points persuasively, and do it all concisely without losing the reader. 
• Have an interest in law, business, or economics.  Those with legal backgrounds often gravitate toward OEM to its unusually close relationship with legal teams, the thorny medicolegal questions that often come up in OEM practice, and opportunity to testify regularly in court cases.  The same can be said for business, with the extremely close relationship with business/industry compared to other medical specialties.  The ability to think and speak like a businessperson can be very helpful, especially in corporate medical roles.  Those with a background in economics also seem to gravitate to OEM, given the key role that OEM docs can play in improving productivity, reducing risk of economic consequences from poor worker health, dealing with population-level data, etc.