Is academic cp the best kept secret in parhology?,

[pathstudent]

I just checked and the PhD where I trained who was the director of chemistry earned almost. 400k a year. He didn't have a research lab. As far as i could tell he just went to meetings and bored us residents with talks about thyroid testing. The phd in charge of fish made almost 500k a year which I kind of get as fish is so lucrative. Those guys made more than almost all the ap attendings. More than most dermpaths and gipaths and heme paths. Not sure what to make of this but it seems like quite a coup on their part.

Btw in most instances state employees salaries are public domain.

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[Weinberg Angle]

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[Weinberg Angle]

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[pathstudent]

Administrators make more than clinicians. Nothing new. Look at the salaries of insurance company CEOs and executives, hospital CEOs and executives, University presidents and administration, etc... But you need the right pedigree and connections to join the big boys club. I would expect the "director" and "phd in charge" to have above average salaries.

Ever heard of JCAHO or The Joint Commission? Look at the administrator salaries and drool. These administrator's with MHAs from podunk U outearn the most lucrative medical specialists.

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20101129/MAGAZINE/101129992

Not talking about the CEO. I'm talking about the phd that was the director of the clinical chem lab. Overall he's a nobody.

 

[Weinberg Angle]

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[malchik]

I just checked and the PhD where I trained who was the director of chemistry earned almost. 400k a year. He didn't have a research lab. As far as i could tell he just went to meetings and bored us residents with talks about thyroid testing. The phd in charge of fish made almost 500k a year which I kind of get as fish is so lucrative. Those guys made more than almost all the ap attendings. More than most dermpaths and gipaths and heme paths. Not sure what to make of this but it seems like quite a coup on their part.

Btw in most instances state employees salaries are public domain.

If true that is a little crazy, they could get plenty of people to direct the chemistry lab and give boring lectures for 1/3 of that.

 

[LADoc00]

I have said this since at least 1999 when I stumbled upon a "Professor of CP" who all he did was take call once a month and proceed to then never answer his pager. He was paid a fortune and as far as I can tell, literally did nothing all day aside from day trade stocks and eat at the faculty club. It was my dream to be that guy until years later he told me in confidence academic centers would never make the mistake of employing a guy like him ever again...my dreams and hopes were dashed and I proceeded to head to the coast, get drunk and drown my sorrows with a young Mexican girl name Rosa.

 

[gbwillner]

Answer: no, it is not.

 

[coroner]

I do not doubt this example, but I would have to think these are the exceptions (extreme ones at that) not the norm, more in the likes of top 1% of CP faculty nationwide. Generally these salaries are determined by the chair of laboratory medicine & pathology who can make upwards of $400-800K. Underneath them you have the chair of AP & CP (who made about $400K at my former institution) and beneath CP you'd have your departmental chairs. If the lab is generating that much revenue and the chair of LMP has that kind of pull and/or collegiality with those respective department heads, I don't see why it's not possible. It does go against the basic business model, even in academia because you could easily hire another PhD just as qualified to do the same job for 200K or less. This is probably department specific at this particular institution and not what's happening in general for academic CP. Also, I would think it's specific for these fields. I can't imagine department heads in other fields of CP reaching those kind of numbers e.g. Micro, Immuno, etc...

 

[deleted314957]

I

I have said this since at least 1999 when I stumbled upon a "Professor of CP" who all he did was take call once a month and proceed to then never answer his pager. He was paid a fortune and as far as I can tell, literally did nothing all day aside from day trade stocks and eat at the faculty club. It was my dream to be that guy until years later he told me in confidence academic centers would never make the mistake of employing a guy like him ever again...my dreams and hopes were dashed and I proceeded to head to the coast, get drunk and drown my sorrows with a young Mexican girl name Rosa.

I call BS. I don't believe the name "Rosa"

 

[gbwillner]

Cp salaries are probably 20-30% lower than their AP counterparts in academia. There is also much less opportunity. A vast majority are folks who do primarily research, and need (and get paid for) a minimal clinical responsibility. Outside of TM, they have very few marketable skills. There was certainly a TM shortage as little as a few years ago, but let's not forget that hospitals don't really need more than 1-2 TM faculty. Otherwise, everything else you do can be done by a PhD for a fraction of the cost. Furthermore, you can do TM with an IM background, which gives you much more career flexibility.

Unless you are an MD/PhD who wants to focus on a basic science research career, there is no reason to do cp-only training.

 

[pathstudent]

Cp salaries are probably 20-30% lower than their AP counterparts in academia. There is also much less opportunity. A vast majority are folks who do primarily research, and need (and get paid for) a minimal clinical responsibility. Outside of TM, they have very few marketable skills. There was certainly a TM shortage as little as a few years ago, but let's not forget that hospitals don't really need more than 1-2 TM faculty. Otherwise, everything else you do can be done by a PhD for a fraction of the cost. Furthermore, you can do TM with an IM background, which gives you much more career flexibility.

Unless you are an MD/PhD who wants to focus on a basic science research career, there is no reason to do cp-only training.

I know it is just one university but to some extent it should be representative. I looked up 16 cp faculty who oversaw immunology chemistry, micro, blood bank, fish/molecular/genetics, aCGH, and flow/hematology coag. Three were 5 PhDs. The average salary was 327k. The lowest was 227k and the highest was 560k. Now you will probably argue that I should take out the heme path people as they can also be considered ap. There were 4 heme path people. Three made less than the mean one made more so I don't think it would be a significant difference. The 560k was not a heme path person.

I find it shocking. There are too many ap people for me to bother counting but it sure looked like the average would be lower by looking up a few.

I say the answer to my question is "yes cp only academics is a darn good kept secret if not the best kept secret".

 

[malchik]

I know it is just one university but to some extent it should be representative. I looked up 16 cp faculty who oversaw immunology chemistry, micro, blood bank, fish/molecular/genetics, aCGH, and flow/hematology coag. Three were 5 PhDs. The average salary was 327k. The lowest was 227k and the highest was 560k. Now you will probably argue that I should take out the heme path people as they can also be considered ap. There were 4 heme path people. Three made less than the mean one made more so I don't think it would be a significant difference. The 560k was not a heme path person.

I find it shocking. There are too many ap people for me to bother counting but it sure looked like the average would be lower by looking up a few.

I say the answer to my question is "yes cp only academics is a darn good kept secret if not the best kept secret".

It would appear that at least this USED to be the case, but I am guessing the above reflects the fact that academic centers tend not to fire people or reduce their salaries. Have most of the above examples been at their jobs for at least twenty years? Is there any evidence that young-ish academic CP'ers make anywhere close to that?

 

[2121115]

Is there any evidence that young-ish academic CP'ers make anywhere close to that?

No. There is no way.

 

[gbwillner]

Cp salaries I've seen for younger faculty have been a fraction of ap. It's hard to really quantify because the numbers of faculty are far fewer. But the range I would say is $80-250K, with most getting in the $140k range.

The pay structure is different- cp are hospital employees and generally do not directly bill for their services. Because they don't really generate RVUs they don't have much leverage with HR for salary. Now, lab directors may be a different story, but there can really be only one for each lab.

 

[pathstudent]

Cp salaries I've seen for younger faculty have been a fraction of ap. It's hard to really quantify because the numbers of faculty are far fewer. But the range I would say is $80-250K, with most getting in the $140k range.

The pay structure is different- cp are hospital employees and generally do not directly bill for their services. Because they don't really generate RVUs they don't have much leverage with HR for salary. Now, lab directors may be a different story, but there can really be only one for each lab.

Do you have any clue what you are talking about. Every fish, flow, cytogenetics, PCR, aCGH, platelet aggregation study, every chemistry test, every microbial culture, every hla typing, every thing that happens in blood bank has a cpt code associated with it and each one has a -26 modifier. Every inpatient and outpatient is billed for every cp test they have performed. On inpatients Medicare and a few major insurers won't pay anything for it but on outpatient tests they do.
The PhDs are probably so highly reimbursed for having well run lucrative fish lab or molecular micro labs etc that generate tons of revenue for the department.

All I do know is those salaries are real but most of the faculty are seasoned mid career types which also accounts for it being so high. Plus they probably have moxie.