which route is better pay for dermatopathology?

[medstu123]

Hi,

just wondering which route is better for dermatopathology: derm or path, in terms of salary. I know that dermpath is hard to get from the path route compared to derm, but derm is a tougher residency to get into. but I have been interested in dermpath for some time now. thanks.

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[pathstudent]

Hi,

just wondering which route is better for dermatopathology: derm or path, in terms of salary. I know that dermpath is hard to get from the path route compared to derm, but derm is a tougher residency to get into. but I have been interested in dermpath for some time now. thanks.

Salary questions are complicated but cms reimburses the same same per pathology cpt code whether you are a pathologist or a dermatologist. However as a dermatologist, you control the tissue and that is a major advantage.

 

[icpshootyz]

There's zero difference in pay. The only difference may be in the fact that some dermatologists prefer to send their specimens to derm-trained dermpaths rather than path-trained ones, so maybe you could get slightly more business that way. But these days the mega dermpath labs are buying out all the small practices anyway, so chances are by the time you get in the field you'll just be working at a corporate lab with a nice salary and maybe a bonus here and there.

 

[Dral]

It's not as easy to get full time dermpath these days, so many will do dermpath + what they were trained in during residency. Derm jobs...well, I'm a Derm resident and I get 3 or 4 emails a week about jobs. Path? I'll assume you've seen about 2/3 of the threads on this forum.

 

[caffeinegirl]

Every full time dermpath I know falls into the following categories:

1) Path trained dermpaths: academics, large corporate labs (ie. Miraca and the such), private practice bought out by other company (ie. Aurora, Sonic), part of a very large dermpath-heavy pathology group (ie. 20+ pathologists), solo dermpath to a large dermatology group, the rare sunsetting solo guy who's on his way out

2) Derm trained dermpaths: academics

The part time dermpaths are similar to what Dral mentioned. ..in that you do part-time dermpath with derm clinic or other surg path duties depending on training. In that situation, I think the stability of salary and job as well as absolute salary is greater in the derm-dermpath scenario.

 

[LADoc00]

Derm trained DPs without a doubt. As a late resort you can also stand up an office and beginning driving business to yourself.

 

[dr.weiner]

Pay is quite variable among derm vs path and even derm vs derm and path vs path. Depends on your priorities.

There are derm-trained DPs who went to top 5 med schools/derm programs taking low-paying academic jobs because they want to be in academics.

There are derm-trained DPs taking DP path only corporate jobs, same job a path-trained DP could do.

There are path-trained people working for derm groups, etc...

If you want to maximize money, you could do that from any route. I went the path route and took a job doing surg path and derm for a private path group. It was the best starting offer of any DP fellow in my year that I know of, path or derm-trained, but I am obviously biased. It was the best job for me.

If you like pathology and want to practice surgpath in addition to DP, go through pathology. I don't think it's much harder to get DP through path, since ~1/2 of programs are in path departments. You just have to be 100% committed to getting a DP spot and work hard trying to do research/network. It may take a couple years/application cycles but it can be done for anyone.

If you like clinical dermatology and have the grades/scores, by all means do the derm route.

Personally, you couldn't pay me enough to do derm clinic. Boring and I hate outpatient medicine.

 

[oldfatman]

Let me get this straight, you want to devote your life to signing out basal cell carcinoma and skin rashes?

 

[icpshootyz]

Let me get this straight, you want to devote your life to signing out basal cell carcinoma and skin rashes?

I did, although there's far more BCC's than rashes. What's your proposed superior alternative?