Does anyone know how much does the academic salary differ for someone who's doing 80% research and 20% clinical? It seems like from various surveys different specialities result in different academic salaries. However, for someone who is mainly running a lab, does this difference still exist? For example, for a MD/PhD assistant professor who spend 80-90% of the time in lab, does the salary differ based on speciality (ex. pediatrics vs. radiation-oncology)? Also, do assistant professors support their own salaries based on grants or the department will chip in to support the 2-3x higher salary than a straight PhD professor? It's a bit difficult to imagine supporting a 250k salary through NIH grant for someone who's just starting a lab... I know these are very specific questions, but it'd be great if someone who's in the early career process and share some insights on this. Thanks!
Academic salaries in different specialities
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yes, yes and yes. AAMC has tables available to faculty members with 25%, 50% and 75% percentiles of compensation at each level. Pediatrics is much lower than Radio-oncology. Academic salaries are lower than private practices due to taxes at all levels (Univ., School, Dept., Division). Yes, you are responsible for making up your salary. NIH cap (+ benefits) is at ~183K. Now, let's assume a high paying specialty like radio-oncology. Calculations typically are made as follows with :
0.8 x 183 K = 146
0.2 x 300K = 60
Salary = 206K for a 80/20 vs 300K for a 100% clinical.
As you move up in the ladder (Associate Professor, Professor, Chief, Chair), the dept. starts covering more for you ABOVE the NIH cap if you are well funded with a track record.
0.8 x 183 K = 146
0.2 x 300K = 60
Salary = 206K for a 80/20 vs 300K for a 100% clinical.
As you move up in the ladder (Associate Professor, Professor, Chief, Chair), the dept. starts covering more for you ABOVE the NIH cap if you are well funded with a track record.
Thank you Fencer for the reply! That's a lot clearer. However, I have to say that based on this calculation, for people who are interested in pursuing a >80% research career it seems like the salary does not differ as much as the pp salaries. For example, based on a 80% research calculation and assuming a 180k salary for pediatrics, that comes out to be 182k...not that much different from the 206k for a rad onc!
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This is absolutely correct, and probably one of the reasons why there are still 80/20 careers in peds, and almost nobody in rad onc runs a 80/20 group. However, in individual case scenarios, your milage varies greatly depending on the specialty, institution, location. Some institutions are very "centralized", meaning that you have to work for them in both research and clinical roles--this protects you from having to find a job, but makes it easy for them to exploit you. Others are more "entrepreneurial", meaning they pay you a specific (low) amount from the grants and you can do whatever else you want to (or not!) make up the rest.
The other thing to realize is that this is all administrative. In reality, the 80% time research is not really 80%, and the 20% clinical may not be 20%. For example, you may work a lot of hours at night writing papers and grants, and work at a clinic or a faculty practice on weekends/coverage/on-call duties. The institution might assign you "20%" clinical duty but the "20%" might consist of nothing more than an hour every other week of seeing 1 patient (literally, because of no-shows). Or it might assign you a real 20%, like 2 months of attending coverage a year, PLUS weekend call coverage in an attending call pool. Or perhaps the 2 months inpatient attending coverage is half way covered by residents and all you have to do is to show up for 2 hours in the morning to round with them. Or perhaps the 20% is doing 5 expensive and fancy procedures per week. Or perhaps if you have the chops they might use your 20% in a more administrative/managerial role, which means perhaps not "clinical" in a strict sense, but say teaching, or quality improvement or practice management/supervision. As you can see, the 20% can generate a vastly different amount of revenue, even within the same specialty (i.e. procedures vs. clinic). Your role (and, correspondingly, your salary) depends on how the institution sees where your value is, and whether you have sufficient leverage, skill and relationship to advocate for yourself.
While being completely tied to the institution and getting a fixed salary used to be the rule for physician scientists, the "entrepreneurial"/no$-guaranteed system has become more common in the age of soft money/consolidation, etc. A not-uncommon scenario is that the clinical and research divisions have a Chinese wall, and the research division pays you a small salary strictly out of grants (i.e. 90k for a K-awardee), then you have a menu of choices (i.e. inpatient vs. outpatient procedure vs. non-procedure) to pick from (or apply to) in the clinical division, and make different salaries depending on what you decide (and what they offer). Whenever your grant runs out, you can work more within the clinical division to make up the salary differential (if that's what you want), or perhaps even work outside of the institution (for example, at an ancillary clinic, or even a different hospital, as long as there's no non-compete). As you can see, these two parts will pull you, because they have differing priorities--the clinical division will want to squeeze the most out of your supposed "20%" while the research will make sure you apply to more and more grants. The ability to manage and thrive in this tension is probably *the* most important skill for physician scientists.
This is all very complex and full of negotiations on an individual basis to be worked out when you are ready, and you should not base your career choice based on something as uncertain as your salary/work hours 10 years from now.
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As indicated, one of the challenges in "high" paying specialties is the combination of: 1) expecting a high salary or at least similar to the academic clinical colleagues, and the 2) reality of the NIH cap. There are other mechanisms like "endowed" chairs to retain talented individuals with research track records.
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I am a radiation oncologist early in the career process, but of course when I considered my specialty choice I looked at what pediatrics (ped onc) and IM docs (med onc, and some other specialties) who did research got paid at big academic institutions.
In rad onc, the opportunities for long-term 80% research almost do not exist. We have almost no NIH funding. Even starting positions are extremely rare. A few people have managed to secure one, and I have tried myself to do this but will likely fail. A rare few manage to get a fully paid academic position paying $200k-$300k, but these are few and far between and hard to sustain. There are many "academic" rad oncs out there out there making $400k+, but these are not the ones doing significant research. It seems to me that very few starting out today (in any specialty) sustain a fully clinically salaried position with mostly research in the long-run. It's a little bit better in med onc, though they get a lot of pharma funding to support them. Rad onc doesn't get much funding from the device manufacturers or drug companies.
In rad onc, the junior mostly research positions at the big name academic hospitals pay on the order of $100k-$150k. These tend to be temporary positions--such as clinical instructor--and most people also fail to get the big grants necessary to maintain the 80% research program at any salary (even the $200k-$300k level). These faculty get moved to 50%+ clinical positions within a few years, and often have to change institutions, with few exceptions.
Academic pediatrics and IM with 80% research pay more on the order of $60k-$100k. It'll be hard to bust much past $100k at 80% research unless you pull in large grants, which in any specialty is extremely difficult.
What most pre-meds fail to understand is that most academic positions have little significant research component, and what little there is is typically "clinical" research--small trials, retrospective reviews, etc. These academic positions that are mostly clinical (i.e. most of them) do typically pay better than the research positions. Another thing that pre-meds don't understand is that academic starting salary is less than $100k/year in many "research friendly" specialties at the big name institutions with the opportunities to do significant research.
It wasn't always like this of course. I started my MD/PhD program just as the grant funding was levelling off, and things were supposed to "get better". But grant funding has been flat for a long time. This means that most of the successful physician-scientists by the traditional metrics started their careers in the boom times of the 90s. Anyone starting their career today has to face the realities of poor funding and lack of opportunities.
In rad onc, the opportunities for long-term 80% research almost do not exist. We have almost no NIH funding. Even starting positions are extremely rare. A few people have managed to secure one, and I have tried myself to do this but will likely fail. A rare few manage to get a fully paid academic position paying $200k-$300k, but these are few and far between and hard to sustain. There are many "academic" rad oncs out there out there making $400k+, but these are not the ones doing significant research. It seems to me that very few starting out today (in any specialty) sustain a fully clinically salaried position with mostly research in the long-run. It's a little bit better in med onc, though they get a lot of pharma funding to support them. Rad onc doesn't get much funding from the device manufacturers or drug companies.
In rad onc, the junior mostly research positions at the big name academic hospitals pay on the order of $100k-$150k. These tend to be temporary positions--such as clinical instructor--and most people also fail to get the big grants necessary to maintain the 80% research program at any salary (even the $200k-$300k level). These faculty get moved to 50%+ clinical positions within a few years, and often have to change institutions, with few exceptions.
Academic pediatrics and IM with 80% research pay more on the order of $60k-$100k. It'll be hard to bust much past $100k at 80% research unless you pull in large grants, which in any specialty is extremely difficult.
What most pre-meds fail to understand is that most academic positions have little significant research component, and what little there is is typically "clinical" research--small trials, retrospective reviews, etc. These academic positions that are mostly clinical (i.e. most of them) do typically pay better than the research positions. Another thing that pre-meds don't understand is that academic starting salary is less than $100k/year in many "research friendly" specialties at the big name institutions with the opportunities to do significant research.
It wasn't always like this of course. I started my MD/PhD program just as the grant funding was levelling off, and things were supposed to "get better". But grant funding has been flat for a long time. This means that most of the successful physician-scientists by the traditional metrics started their careers in the boom times of the 90s. Anyone starting their career today has to face the realities of poor funding and lack of opportunities.
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I was in Boston this weekend, and I've been hearing rumors that fully boarded cardiologists in the Harvard system are getting paid 80k. Not even sure what the research % is for that job. When you live in a place with too many doctors, your value decreases.
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Those places (the HMS hospitals in particular) pay you in "prestige". Which buys exactly $0 worth of your food and rent.
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At least it means you can up charge on honorariums if you write a book or something?
if true, that is insanity.
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I can help you with the IM specialist salaries for those that are 80% research/ 20% clinical. In the HMS system, there is a transition title called Instructor that generally is an extension of fellowship. Most CV folks will make a PGY scale salary or about 80k in this position. In some cases, one can add clinical time that may subsidize you to about 100-120k. Moonlighting 2-3x/mo can get you to 120-130k. This position is a transition position to getting an Assistant Professor job and if one is smart and opportunistic, this Instructor position only lasts 1-3 years. Most people will leave HMS for better offers. Once you are in a position to get an external offer, an academic cardiologist will get a salary of 160-185k with 20% clinical time generally 6-8 weeks of inpatient time and half day a week of clinic. To get these offers, a successful applicant should try to have at least one quality paper and a NIH K grant or equivalent (AHA or BW grants). I hope this helps.
Just want to say thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion! I am currently a 5th year in a MD/PhD program thinking about future career, and this information really opened up my eyes about future career perspectives. Not that I am in MD/PhD for the money (since there's none anyways), but it is good to know what to expect.
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While this applies to vanishingly few research-oriented MD/PhDs, I've found that anesthesiology can allow you to be very well compensated (250-300+ at the faculty level) while maintaining 75-80% research time. Caveats, of course, include: you have to enjoy anesthesiology, and you need to be at a top-10 residency program. Several trends in healthcare have brought about this situation, and it's an excellent opportunity. There are downsides to being in a field without a coherent focus - eg compared to cardiology, where presumably everyone's doing something heart related, anesthesia basic science runs the gamut: immunology, cardiovascular physiology, ischemia, stroke, drug discovery, neuro, etc etc etc.
To the young'uns, try something outside of peds/IM/path. I switched my application from neurology to anesthesia in July of my "4th" year after doing a rotation on a whim. Glad I did.
To the young'uns, try something outside of peds/IM/path. I switched my application from neurology to anesthesia in July of my "4th" year after doing a rotation on a whim. Glad I did.
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Anesthesia can be a nice lifestyle for physician scientists. The support though often drops once you get to R level, but K level researchers are often quite happy. Anesthesiology is a great move for clinical or very translational careers, but less so for wet or basic science since they dont really own an organ system.
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I will allow myself to be paid in prestige only when these hospitals allow the patients to pay their medical bills in prestige.
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Might be my favorite post on SDN
This reply is for those seeking the research professor track. The clinical track would be different, and lucky you if you find one in a major city.
Please keep in mind that early career grants like the 4-5 year NIH K state that they REQUIRE 75% protected research time (9 of 12 months equivalent). And most NIH institutes provide salary for only $75k through that mechanism. The $90k is offered by a smaller fraction of NIH.
So, an academic instituion has to figure out where to make up 25% of your income. If you're only working clinically at most 1.5 days in a week, good luck figuring out the RVU's to reach a ~$200+k annual salary. Some institutions will put in non-compete agreements in your contract, making moonlighting a big no-no. I'm already being told by my administrators an annual ~$150k is more realistic, and that's just the tip of many issues to work out for a potential faculty position.
Meaning, if you want to go the research track AND have an income comparable to someone in a similar specialty and out in practice, give up such a dream in your early career phase.
Please keep in mind that early career grants like the 4-5 year NIH K state that they REQUIRE 75% protected research time (9 of 12 months equivalent). And most NIH institutes provide salary for only $75k through that mechanism. The $90k is offered by a smaller fraction of NIH.
So, an academic instituion has to figure out where to make up 25% of your income. If you're only working clinically at most 1.5 days in a week, good luck figuring out the RVU's to reach a ~$200+k annual salary. Some institutions will put in non-compete agreements in your contract, making moonlighting a big no-no. I'm already being told by my administrators an annual ~$150k is more realistic, and that's just the tip of many issues to work out for a potential faculty position.
Meaning, if you want to go the research track AND have an income comparable to someone in a similar specialty and out in practice, give up such a dream in your early career phase.
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Forgot to add one NIH K exception. But you need to plan way, way, way ahead. I can't stress that enough.
There is the K99/R00, the fabled "kangaroo" award. 4-year post-doc window. IOW, you have to start planning upon graduating your degree program.
Some NIH institutes have recently started counting clinical fellowships as part of that window. IMO, that's ridiculous since several fellowships last 3-4 years if you want full clinical training.
It starts off as a 2-year K with same salary and requirements as I mentioned. Then, transitions to a full NIH R on successful grant "renewal" and securement of a faculty job.
These are very rare, though.
There is the K99/R00, the fabled "kangaroo" award. 4-year post-doc window. IOW, you have to start planning upon graduating your degree program.
Some NIH institutes have recently started counting clinical fellowships as part of that window. IMO, that's ridiculous since several fellowships last 3-4 years if you want full clinical training.
It starts off as a 2-year K with same salary and requirements as I mentioned. Then, transitions to a full NIH R on successful grant "renewal" and securement of a faculty job.
These are very rare, though.
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True. Hopkins is the same. I'm a cardiologist who started an academic job after fellowship (75/25). The salary on offer varies wildly depending on: 1. whether you have a grant, 2. what other offers are on the table. 3. location in the U.S., 4. how much money they can make from you in the 25% clinical effort. 5. Whether it's your home institution.
1. A particular institution offered me 125K as a triple boarded physician unless I had at least a K grant or something equally sizable. Candidly, I made more than that moonlighting, and I told them so.
2. The institution in 1. doubled their offer when I showed them an academic job offer for 310K that would cap at 450K in year 5.
3. I found the Midwest pays the most, West coast the least, and Northeast somewhere in the middle.
4. I do CCU which is a cash cow. So is echo. If you're outpatient or run a lipid clinic, forget it--those does not make that much money. If you know what you are billed out for, this will give you a strong hand to play because you know when you're being given a bad offer.
5. Your home institution ALWAYS will offer (at least initially) FAR less than they would to an outside recruit. Know that it's a process. Realize they don't need to recruit you, relocate you, or integrate you. This saves them time and headaches. NEVER take the first offer.
In the end, having several offers is pretty much essential in academia. Try to get as much as you can in that first offer. The amount they would have paid you if you negotiated might take 10-15 years to reach. I also looked at a couple of private practice jobs starting at 350K with a 30K signing bonus. Private practice is not for me. Bottom line: academic research is important and it's needed. Universities know this; it's what gives them cache. They absolutely cannot expect you to accept a salary around what a pure researcher would get when you might have 200K+ in med school loans, and your skillset and ability to make clinical revenue sets you apart. Don't accept it and, if you do, best of luck to you.
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This is not so possible in the long run, and especially not in lower paying specialties. Now if you tell me you can work 1.5 days a week and still be in the black with 225k in CCU with 0 extramural research grants, THAT might be a sustainable model.
There are other complicating factors. At a large training center, some graduates just can't move for family reasons, and will stay for a lowball offer. The department chairs don't want to break the salary line too much just because you have a competing offer, because it exposes the department to potential discrimination lawsuits, and it's a liability for losing quality people. So what ends up happening is that unless you move, you won't get a higher offer, and they don't take anyone from outside except at very senior levels. This is very common at large training centers as a pattern in cognitive specialties. Without a track record, each emerging young investigator is a lottery ticket, and department heads want to minimize the cost of buying these tickets.
If you are dead set on becoming faculty at MGH (or another large training center) for reasons outside of money and location (i.e. say, "scientific environment" or "prestige") your best bet is actually just match at MGH for residency, but be prepared that your post-residency salary will be lower, sometimes dramatically, and perhaps for things outside of your control--which is really okay for some people (I'm speaking for a number of people I know who are on that track...), because they know exactly what they want, and it's not money (i.e. already have a wealthy spouse, or just "love science" in *that way*. I'm speaking with some degree of irony.)
The debt issue is not applicable to MD/PhDs.
Clinical jobs are also pegged to performance. Weird things happen with this--i.e. your clinical service chief (or managing partner at a practice) may start to assign you shifts you don't want, or make you do things you don't want to do (i.e. education, service, administrative), extra call, etc. So you might be forced to make even more money by putting in more hours, when you don't really want to. Statistically people move more frequently from their first clinical job than their first research job. I've seen people who make a LOT of money becoming very unhappy with this.
I find that career planning after MD/PhD to be very complicated because all kinds of factors that I'm not aware of previously, such as the tension between autonomy and safety, money and lifestyle, etc.
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Everbody, just keep in mind, that in the long run (private practice, academia, etc.), we must produce our salary + overhead (institutional or practice). If you get into a high salary, you better understand what RVUs do and don't pay and how much time effort is associated with them. There is no free-lunch... Nevertheless, if you live within your means a clinician-scientist career can be very productive, fulfilling and allow you to live well.
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If you're funded, it's definitely possible (my grant pays 50% of my salary).
If you did both degrees separately (like me), debt is definitely a consideration.
This doesn't make any sense...lawsuit? Check out any given institution--it is AMAZING the range of salaries for people at the same level doing the same job. My feeling is that negotiation was an issue for some of them.
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You are right--agree. Even in the clinical areas, some people's salaries are WAY higher than others because some jobs have different salary lines compared to others. I agree it's a matter of negotiation. But it's not *just* a matter of negotiation. When the department has literally no money to give out, there's nothing to negotiate, so your choices are 1) you leave 2) you take the lowball offer. This happens at some regularity.
I actually think it's very unusual to have two people with the exact same job description (i.e. exactly the same ICU attending working the exact same number of shifts with the exact number of years of experience) with very highly different salaries. This would violate efficient market hypothesis--dept chairs are not idiots. They will pay you market rates. You are just surprised that they would even try with such a ridiculous low ball initial offer. I've found that this is not just common, it's almost standard practice (i.e. 50% below market starting offer) at training centers. And the sad thing is they do get away with it, especially with women and immigrants and other minorities.
The main message is that people should try and look for another job somewhere else, even if they plan to stay. Unfortunately the reality is a lot of times it's very difficult to negotiate because of lack of leverage.
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Not to be intrusive, but would you be willing to elaborate on this?
Given the NIH salary cap is $183K, meaning you can't get more than $91.5K for 50% time,
Say you are getting the other 50% time at a base salary of $310K, which would be $155K
Then your total would be $246.5
Which sounds fantastic to me for a 50% research position (of course academic psychiatrists are far cheaper than cardiologists) but I am having trouble seeing how you could get into the $400K/year with only 50% clinical time. You'd have to have a clinical base salary of >$600K.
(Or is this a pharma grant? Do those come without a salary cap?)
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This works for 50/50 if:
1) your full time clinical base salary is 400K -- that generates 200K
2) your grant pays you 90K, and
3) your department subsidizes the remaining 110K.
#1 doesn't seem that crazy for interventional cards anywhere outside the bay area and northeast.
#2 is a given
#3.... i've often wondered about, as in, what on earth would incentivize a department to use money this way? This is not uncommon in my semi-procedural specialty, which generates a sizable pile of clinical revenue and relatively low academic output. In my specialty, the difference between being ranked #2 and #12 in NIH funding is $3.5m. Best I can tell, for a department vying for space and influence in a top tier academic center, every potential dollar in NIH funding is worth 2 or 3 dollars of investment by the department. So, from that point of view, perhaps spending $1m on 10 investigator-years doesn't seem like such a bad use of funds.
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This was my experience both on the interview trail and where I took a job. If you're fortunate enough to work at a place where you have a research skill that they need/want and your desire is to serve as a clinician investigator, it can work out nicely for you. I've seen this model work quite well in some of the surgical specialties where part of the fellowship training requires 1-2 years of research. If you're at an academic facility, those fellows have to go somewhere! If you're a clinician that happens to have a basic science lab that publishes slowly and steadily, you'll find you might have a home there and they will subsidize you for it. You don't need to light the world on fire with your research, but you do need to have the substrate to sustain it. You're not going to come out of fellowship with a R01 and it's not likely you'll have a K99/R00 or K08 during fellowship and department Chairs who understand research get that. When you get grants coming in....even better. Everybody wins.
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Your math isn't quite right. Think about it this way, even in academic psychiatry, even (especially?) in big cities, you can still often bill > 400k altogether a year as a full time clinician. And overhead is way lower than in cardiology. So the department has a lot of discretion in terms how much money they would actually pay you if you were in reality doing 50/50 (or 75/25).
Based on various gossip, I think it's not uncommon for senior researchers in large departments to net > 300k, plus additional income from private practice. Given that even if you get two R01s it would only protect you for 195k of soft money at 100%, the department would have you "supplement" you *very hard* for the remaining "25%" if you are using the exact billing as a metric for the very limited clinical services these people provide. What *really* happens is that the department "taxes" a ton from clinical revenues generated by junior faculty to supplement senior faculty salary. But this makes a lot of sense--this is no different from any large, lucrative organization (such as a law firm) where the "partners" take a cut from the rain they make and junior associates bill. I think salary at the senior level is much clearer and market driven because it's pretty obvious how much money some senior known item who has a track record of raising millions is worth to any institution. You bring money in, you take a cut. Doesn't matter how you do it. It's purely commission driven. At the junior level, that's when you start playing the worker-bee game of "oh I need to generate this much in clinical" (even if it's at a very non-profitable Medicaid clinic) and "the department has X% overhead" to get to a fixed salary of XXXk "at your level". From a pure monetary perspective, I suspect the margin for grants via its absurd indirects is actually higher than clinical revenue in cognitive specialties (and its razor thin profit margin these days with decreasing reimbursements), which is IMHO ultimately why "elite" large departments prefer grants. This is really also why clinical services with large profit margins (i.e. derm/rad onc and what have you) don't end up building large research groups. It's not that they are not as "interested in supporting research". That explanation is IMHO a post-hoc justification of the differential profit margin from the department head perspective. In the long run, the department can only grow organically in specific directions based on whatever can be done that's more or less profitable. If IM office visits have a much higher profit margin than derm procedures, I suspect derm depts would chase after NIH harder than IM would.
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This only works in a field where people are not getting K99s out of postdoc, which is not the case in my field, where getting a K is essentially a de-facto screen for becoming a faculty candidate. In fact, in major metropolitan areas, even candidates with a K99 and multiple big papers are waiting in line for a job to open.
Different fields have different levels of competition, and it's difficult to generalize based on a specific story.
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Can you elaborate on how this pay structures work for surgery? For example, if I do 50-50 orthopedic surgery and research (well, first, not sure it is even possible) and assume regular assistant full time ortho professors get paid $400k, can I expect to get paid $300k maybe? I am pretty sure ortho department will have a hard time finding surgeons who can do research. But at the same time orthos make so much money clinically for the department that i am not even sure they will let you do 50-50 at all.....
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There are some people in orthopedic surgery doing research. Not many stay in that path. Indeed, clinical revenue pressures might push you in the long run away from the scientific path. Most academic departments are small, and they have turn over, when you lose a faculty member then you are asked to pitch in more of your time. If you stick to your guns, when you need bridging, they might not be so accommodating. You are correct regarding $.
Well, as Fencer said, you could do a 50-50 as an orthopedic surgeon. In such a situation, I would seriously ask, "Why???"
Higher-earning surgeons like orthopedics are doing something wrong if they make only $400k/yr, except if they work for a government system or in a really competitive environment. Also, more procedurally oriented specialties mandate a minimum number of procedures per year per operator to maintain safety / competency. As a patient or referring MD, I would question a surgeon's skill set if s/he has a considerably less case load than his/her competitors.
And in terms of academics, if you're after papers and reputation, a far more profitable arrangement for a surgeon would be to partner with a PhD epidemiologist / biostatistician or non-surgical MD (e.g., a rheumatologist). The collaborator would be far more willing to take on the lead PI role (yes, surgeons can and often do serve as co-PI's), including all the work that entails, and would benefit more salary-wise, too.
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Regarding ortho, salary and job prospects are specialty specific. So you'd have to ask an academic orthopedic surgeon about salaries and feasibility of a research career in orthopedics.
I'd check the AAMC salary survey for an idea about salaries.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/salary-i-dont-even-know-where-to-begin.880078/#post-11986614
In a research position (something like 80/20 or 50/50), you'd probably have to work for a few years as a fellow or at the 25th percentile instructor level, then move onto 25th percentile assistant professor level. I'd guess that those positions are probably very scarce and difficult to maintain.
I'd check the AAMC salary survey for an idea about salaries.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/salary-i-dont-even-know-where-to-begin.880078/#post-11986614
In a research position (something like 80/20 or 50/50), you'd probably have to work for a few years as a fellow or at the 25th percentile instructor level, then move onto 25th percentile assistant professor level. I'd guess that those positions are probably very scarce and difficult to maintain.
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I found this link where you can find 2015 data report numbers already nicely tabulated (and no 550$ paywall).
https://jfr.uams.edu/usefullink.php
Although I'm not really sure how to interpret these numbers. "Clinical faculty" could mean just about anything right? As in the people counted therein would not necessarily have a basic science appointment? The link includes PhD salaries per basic science department and percentiles and such. Would a reasonable prediction of an 80/20 salary be 80% of a 25th percentile PhD salary with your department + 20% of a 25th percentile clinical salary in your specialty?
Also, what is the reason for focusing on the 25th percentile? Would it not be more reasonable to focus on the 50th?
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Cool thanks.
It's the primary appointment. Most MDs and MD/PhDs who do research are employed by a primary clinical department, unless they are 100% research, which is incredibly uncommon.
That is how some institutions do it.
You typically get paid less if you are at a big name place. You also get paid less if you have more research time. The places that give the research time tend to be the big name places, so you have a double whammy. MD/PhDs doing significant research are so rare in those surgical specialties that their salary is probably more like 10th percentile for rank.
Also, just because we're talking about salaries here, it doesn't mean that the job will actually exist for you. I would have taken a pay cut to have a 50-80% research position. I simply did not have that option. There were absolutely no >20% research positions at any salary at any programs that had my area of research.
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Thanks for the clarification, Neuro. And ya I haven't forgotten about positions not necessarily existing at any level on the "other side" *nervous laughter*.
One more question: what the heck is a <=20% research position? What could you possibly accomplish with 20% research time? Or are you essentially an unproductive post doc for another lab at that point? Or are those just clinical research appointments?
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It's called "clinical assistant professor", and it's the vast majority of jobs within academics these days, MD or MD/PhD. Different people do different things with their careers at that point. It's highly variable. Even what constitutes 80% clinical is highly variable.
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At many university medical centers, there are multiple tracks that you might be on as faculty. There is the tenure track, which is what most people think of as basic science professors. There is usually a purely clinical service track. Then, there is often a track in between, called clinical-X or something. The biggest difference in these tracks is the criteria against which you are judged for promotion. If you are on the tenure track, then you are expected to produce many papers and get grants, much like a basic science professor, with the expectation of having a lot of research time. If you are on the clinical track, then you are judged by your clinical practice and teaching.
Many clinical departments will push people towards the clinical track or middle track because it's much easier to get promoted and there is a lot more flexibility. On this track, you might have anywhere from 20-80% research. The department may prefer you to be in it because of the flexibility, for both you and the department. Promotion is not controlled by the department but rather the medical school, so it doesn't benefit them if someone they want to stay doesn't get promoted.
There is a lot of variation to this, and what it's called at each institutions. A lot of times you may not have to choose a track immediately or may have options to switch tracks.
Many clinical departments will push people towards the clinical track or middle track because it's much easier to get promoted and there is a lot more flexibility. On this track, you might have anywhere from 20-80% research. The department may prefer you to be in it because of the flexibility, for both you and the department. Promotion is not controlled by the department but rather the medical school, so it doesn't benefit them if someone they want to stay doesn't get promoted.
There is a lot of variation to this, and what it's called at each institutions. A lot of times you may not have to choose a track immediately or may have options to switch tracks.
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