Academic medicine salaries

[Ollie123]

Hey folks,
Anyone in academic medical settings (esp. psychiatry) found good data sources to use in salary negotiations?APA salary survey only has psychology departments in recent history. I can project from the 9-10 month salaries at doctoral institutions and am getting mid 80's to low 90's for fresh assistant professors, which sounds in the ballpark of correct for me for the type of institution/position I will be in (new assistant professor starting a K award at a top medical school, likely maintaining 10-20% clinical effort and the rest research). That said, I don't like the idea of assuming psychology = psychiatry, given the completely different financial structure of the departments. I also pulled our clinical projections so I can make the case I shouldn't be taking a financial hit for doing research.

Curious what else might be out there or what other strategies people may have used in these situations. My plan is to calculate some comps, ask for above the median and settle back towards the median. I strongly suspect some others here are below it, so I'm expecting an uphill battle. Which always seems somewhat ridiculous given I'll be the one responsible for finding money to pay myself anyways...

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[PsyDr]

Sweet salary survey has an AMC section with descriptives, IIRC.

 

[Ollie123]

Thought Sweet salary survey was neuropsych specific?

That said, I'll take a look Even if it is - more data points don't hurt. Especially since field of practice is probably only peripherally relevant if clinical practice will only be a small percentage of my salary.

 

[entitlement]

Is this a public university AMC? You can look up the salaries of people in your department, find the recent Asst P hires, and see the ranges. Even if you are at a private university, look for the nearest public AMC near you. I've noticed that private institutions typically pay about $5k-$10k more than the same public position but this is based on a small sample.

By the way, if your position is in California (Bay Area particularly) or NYC, this seems spot on with the ranges I've been seeing. Anywhere else and I think your range is a bit high.

 

[Ollie123]

Private. Unfortunately, the nearest public AMC is notorious for offering low pay, little respect and generally having a bad culture for psychologists so I am reluctant to pull comps from there. Unfortunately, I worry it may contribute to a lower market rate for the local area.

Definitely not NYC or SF. I'm in a very moderate COL area. Most of my friends on K's started around 80, but that was a few years ago (and admittedly in different areas - though not NYC/SF). NIH just upped the cap on K grants, which tells me enough were hitting it they needed to change.

 

[LM02]

Mid-80s sounds about right for a first year, primarily research focused Assistant Prof at an AMC. Even though it's seems like it should be a somewhat independent decision given that you will largely be paying for yourself, departments (and HR) will still consider equity across faculty at a given level. You'll need to fall "in the range" for a variety of reasons. For example, at my school, the Dean of Public Health was trying to limit our merit salary increases (not in Public Health!) because she knew she would have to raise the salaries of her faculty if our salaries at the same rank were meaningfully higher. So it gets oddly political.

Also, the days of salary freezes (around 2007-2010) weren't that long ago, and departments are still catching up.* So sadly, I don't think the expectation for salary can be that much higher than what it was 5-10 years ago.

(*interesting side-note, even though my colleagues and I are all soft money - and therefore our salaries could not be rebudgeted elsewhere - we were still subjected to these salary freezes during those days; in the name of "equity")

 

[deleted343839]

The AAMC faculty salary survey is the benchmark many AMCs use. You should be able to find a copy in any medical school/AMC library. It only breaks down salaries by region, PhD v. MD, department, and rank, though, so you have to extrapolate from the data available. But if you look up PhD faculty salaries in Psychiatry departments that will be most representative of psychologists.

I'd ask for 95K and go from there.

 

[Ollie123]

The AAMC faculty salary survey is the benchmark many AMCs use. You should be able to find a copy in any medical school/AMC library. It only breaks down salaries by region, PhD v. MD, department, and rank, though, so you have to extrapolate from the data available. But if you look up PhD faculty salaries in Psychiatry departments that will be most representative of psychologists.

I'd ask for 95K and go from there.

Awesomely helpful. Thank you. Had heard of that database, but didn't know it was broken down in that way. I emailed our medical librarian to see if they can walk me through the process - I cannot for the life me find a way to access it on my own either through their website or my university's.

 

[EmotRegulation]

Congrats on the K, Ollie, that's awesome!

 

[DynamicDidactic]

yes, congrats on the K. That range sounds on point for salary. You can also find recent job postings that actually list salaries to help your negotiations. The tricky part if to always find a higher salary than what you will settle for

I actually find that the higher prestige for an AMC the lower the salary, they sort of think that the name makes up for salary.