job outlook....

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can anyone tell me the job outlook for pathology residents after residency/fellowship? i've been hearing mixed results....is it hard to land a job, if you wanted to do a surgical pathology fellowship or any other sub-specialty?

thanks.

The path job market is a strange beast. Most private practice jobs are not advertised. They are obtained by word of mouth. There is a listing of jobs on the CAP website, but you have to be a member to see them. Last time I looked there were about 80 listed nationwide. My program director gets calls, emails and letters from groups looking for people that will never see the light of day in a help wanted add.

Since path is a relatively small field compared to other specialties if you limit your search to a specific city or region you can have a very hard time finding a job.

There is little hard data on the job market to analyse from the recent past. The data from the early and mid 90s was not great. There was a job crunch due to reimbursement dramatically declining and HMOs, so path groups stopped hiring and did more with what they had to try and keep the large salaries they were accustomed to having. This data cannot be applied to the current job situation.

All of the people finishing in my program in the last 3 years have had no problems finding jobs. Most have jobs waiting on them by Jan. Also, when I asked my chairman about the job market his words to me were comforting "I don't know any unemployed pathologists, do you?" And he knows tons of people.

I have not heard from anyone at other programs that had any problem finding jobs either.

Path is not as hot as rads and gas, but not many specialties are. Dermpath is in high demand. Cytopath and hemepath are hot as well, but not to the extent as derm.

All these comments are based mostly on private practice if you are interested in academics or forensics then that is a whole other issue.

Good luck. Please forgive any spelling errors or grammer I am sleepy.

thanks for the reply...

how about surgical pathology? compared to other sub-specialties?

Surgical Pathology is not really a sub-specialty it is the main part of Anatomic Path. Sure you can do a fellowship in surgical path but there is no board certification. Doing an extra year concentrating on surg path may help in the job market, but not like doing derm, cyto or heme.

Have you spent any time on a path rotation? If not you should try it out. Make sure you like path, some people don't.

Derm especially is a very very hard fellowship to get. Most people who want it don't get it. Cyto and heme are competitive but usually a spot can be found.

The overall answer to your question on the job market really can't be given there are to many individual variables (ie. where do you want a job, where did you get your med school training, where did you get your path training, are you outgoing, do you speak english well, are you board certified, did you complete a fellowship, etc...etc...). But, overall it seems the path market is fine.