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Just curious if anyone attended this year? Was there something to be optimistic about?
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I think the real percentage of hospital employed is probably higher. Everyone I know who has graduated in the last couple of years has taken a hospital-employed job and it reflects a trend that's been happening since last decadeSome stats shared by an anonymous poster who attended:
Average on-site interviews: 4
Average job offers: 2
# ASTRO interviews that eventually became job offers: 0
Increase to 25% responding graduates being hospital employees compared to 6% in 2012.
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I would imagine (and from what I've seen) that hospital-employed pays better than an "academic" position in name only at the academic enter or nearby satellite.The difference between hospital employed and academic is getting very slim. There are plenty of academic jobs out there with no protected time. I certainly know my share of people who have an academic title, but are basically employed full time clinical rad oncs at either the main center or a satellite.
PP isn't much better. Getting what was always called partnership is increasingly difficult. Plenty of positions out there where the current partners are sharing the technicals but won't hire anyone (explicitly or by deceipt) who they'll share the technicals with. Plenty of "professional" partnerships and other gimmicks out there. Some don't even promise that.
Welcome to the future...
Unsure why there needs to be secrecy. There are no copyrights or non-disclosure agreements that I am aware of. I certainly would not post slides but simply recalling facts from the slides is fine.
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Not sure how it works - does paying conference registration entail some exclusive right to the non-published material? No idea so err on side of caution.
Let's put it this way - the big news was no news. The labor market and fellowship expansion wasn't discussed any more than at face value, either in the fellowship or job application panel. Regarding the fellowship panel the people who spoke were very nice - but all were people who had gone through fellowship already. There was no focus on 'why do you think there are now 30-40' fellowships now?' or 'is it a sign that there are no good jobs when non-accredited fellowships are springing up like weeds'.
Here are two memorable lines
1. One gentleman on the panel talked about how his wife was graduating derm same year and how hard it was to coordinate interviews - because he felt there was such a narrow window of time to accept offers and a lot of work to get interviews, while she got interviews and a job everywhere she wanted. Anecdotal but interesting observation
2. One gentlewoman, who was quite informative, said something along the lines of 'I don't think having a fellowship hurts you for private practice.... my private practice is looking to open a fellowship'. I cringed inside. Appreciate her honesty, but everything about that statement is terrible.
The Terry Wall data does not have employment % and has a much lower completion rate then the resident survey from 2014 that was published (I think he cited only 35% completion? And much less for further years post graduation... could be wrong). It would benefit the field greatly if everyone fills them out, but it doesn't have questions the other survey had (difficulty with geography, couldn't find a job in academics, felt forced into fellowship, etc). Kudos to him though, what a great asset to the field that he does what he does.
So at this ASTRO, this issue was a no show.
I can appreciate everyone feeling nervous at this point but the paranoia is getting a little out of hand. Not all were advertised but I interviewed for/discussed real opportunities for good jobs in Raleigh-Durham, Portland, Chicago, Rochester NY, the Bay Area and a smattering of Midwest cities this year. I also saw adds for Jobs in NYC, Palo Alto, So Cal, Dallas, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and other mid-sized cities. There are good jobs out there. Not everyone is doomed to a fellowship or crappy job. Even this year.
1. One gentleman on the panel talked about how his wife was graduating derm same year and how hard it was to coordinate interviews - because he felt there was such a narrow window of time to accept offers and a lot of work to get interviews, while she got interviews and a job everywhere she wanted. Anecdotal but interesting observation
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It can't be emphasized enough... The "best" jobs aren't advertised on the astro site. It's where people post jobs that they have a hard time filling lately it seems. Half the postings seem to be fellowships now.I can appreciate everyone feeling nervous at this point but the paranoia is getting a little out of hand. Not all were advertised but I interviewed for/discussed real opportunities for good jobs in Raleigh-Durham, Portland, Chicago, Rochester NY, the Bay Area and a smattering of Midwest cities this year. I also saw adds for Jobs in NYC, Palo Alto, So Cal, Dallas, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and other mid-sized cities. There are good jobs out there. Not everyone is doomed to a fellowship or crappy job. Even this year.
It can't be emphasized enough... The "best" jobs aren't advertised on the astro site. It's where people post jobs that they have a hard time filling lately it seems. Half the postings seem to be fellowships now.
If you know you want to be somewhere specific geographically, and you have a couple of years to go, start putting out feelers now.
The market has tightened for sure, but the above has always been true
I can appreciate everyone feeling nervous at this point but the paranoia is getting a little out of hand. Not all were advertised but I interviewed for/discussed real opportunities for good jobs in Raleigh-Durham, Portland, Chicago, Rochester NY, the Bay Area and a smattering of Midwest cities this year. I also saw adds for Jobs in NYC, Palo Alto, So Cal, Dallas, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and other mid-sized cities. There are good jobs out there. Not everyone is doomed to a fellowship or crappy job. Even this year.
That's great to hear, but it's not paranoia. Also I would point out that according to Wall's data, 0% of on site ASTRO interviews or recruitment lead to a job when this was the only point of contact (or maybe it was 0% for ads and only 25% for interview, can't recall). Not sure how many of those you cite fall into that category. And I would very much like to know the quality of those positions you site - because my impression was that there were 0 'good' jobs in the Bay area.
I'm going to leave it all alone, just like last week when I was networking my butt off, but it is certainly not paranoia. The fellowship expansion isn't fictitious and certainly isn't a product of benevolence. Neither is residency expansion in the face of declining RT utilization and a clearly tightening job market in almost all of the most desirable regions. Neither is the only true employment survey 2 years back showing some pretty poor outcomes in terms of actually getting a job, getting an academic job, and getting a desired region (7% unemployment, 16% couldnt get academics, 33% couldn't get region).
That story is old, it's not changing, might as well put your head down and grin. There is extremely little appetite to address it, and with declining reimbursement everyone from academics to PP will look to residents or fellows as a very cheap labor source - especially when the only verification they need on the clinical side of things is a case log the resident is perversely incentivized to maximize(or nothing at all for fellows).
Long time lurker, first(ish) time poster. It might be my naïveté with RadOnc that will (hopefully) get better over the years, but with more work into multi-modal therapy (and research-oriented RadOncs spearheading efforts to find radiation/systemic combinations), might not the job market look a little better down the road? Any take on the increased efforts to train proceduralists (IORT, brachy, interventionalists) as a means to secure, or even expand, our place? With more emphasis on targeted agents (biologics and otherwise), might RadOncs end up being a little more like MedOncs in terms of managing systemic therapies with concurrent RT? I mean...I kind of trust those MedOnc nurses and NPs to run the show for infusions more than the MedOnc MDs. Was that sacrilege to say?
I would imagine (and from what I've seen) that hospital-employed pays better than an "academic" position in name only at the academic enter or nearby satellite.
Professional partnership isn't a gimmick. Partners may not want to bring anyone else into the technical, but that doesn't mean you can't be a on professional partnership track. Obviously scouting things out beforehand and looking at the practice's history is key.
Your salary on professional reimbursement alone will be peanuts.
About 80% of the reimbursement for radiation oncologists is technical. Your salary on professional reimbursement alone will be peanuts.