A question for the seasoned veterans...

[NinerNiner999]

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So I was offered a fellowship position this week what would train me to become a medical director. I've always been inclined to manage and work with people to run a department, but I was surprised by the offer from my PD to start a new fellowship crafted around my goals.

I am very familiar with the responsibilities of a medical director, but I'm not sure how the salary structure and clinical hours coincide. As I understand it, clinical hours will be split with administrative duties, which is fine, but how will that effect my future earning potential? Are Medical Director salaries fixed or is there an hourly ED component based on top of the director base salary (I.E. if I make say $180/yr as a medical director, and split 100 clinical hours/month at $150/hr, will my total salary be a combination of both incomes, or around $360k) or do the reported salaries in surveys already include a mix of both administrative and clinical work?

This offer sounds like a pretty sweet deal - I would train for my "fellowship" at whichever hospital I am employed with and would be overseen by Hopkins for my fellowship requirements (which means I get the best of both worlds - a community job with community pay AND an academic fellowship with academic benefits). What I'm not clear on is how this experience would benefit me in the long run.

Can anyone offer me some suggestions?

 

[EctopicFetus]

First off I am far from a "seasoned verteran" but...my advisor is a Medical Director of a large county hospital. I was asking him a similar question and what he told me was basically this... He makes about 60-70K more per year than the other attendings. Overall he works about 15-20 hours per week more, with his time split between clinical and admin work. On the other hand he has picked up some freelance consulting work, which includes designing new EDs. This adds to his income. He told me that per hour he makes much less doing the admin stuff than the clinical but he likes it and in addition he gets to work fewer nights and weekends cause he is the admin man.

I dont know how helpful this really is but I thought I would throw it out there.

 

[docB]

In my group the medical directors of each hospital get a stipend that is to compensate them for the hours of meetings and so on that they go to. They could make more if they devoted that time to clinical hours.

 

[NinerNiner999]

Thanks for all of your replies. From what I'm also hearing though, employers are starving for people to take on administrative responsibilities. If that is the case, would a fellowship such as this really be needed or will I be just as likely to have the training as a medical director on my own?

 

[southerndoc]

Don't want to do the Hopkins Assistant Chief of Service fellowship for $50 grand per year? 🙂

Sounds like a sweet offer Niner! (Yours, not the ACS fellow position for $50 grand per year).

 

[NinerNiner999]

Don't want to do the Hopkins Assistant Chief of Service fellowship for $50 grand per year? 🙂

Sounds like a sweet offer Niner! (Yours, not the ACS fellow position for $50 grand per year).

Thanks! Btw - I think they are paying almost 60k/year now. It's tempting,....