Academic Salary

[staup]

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I know this varies by specialty and is probably highly variable, but does anyone know what kind of salary an academic physician who does say 80/20 research/clinical when most of their salary actually comes from grants? How much do they take out of those grants for their own salary?

 

[adam6]

I know this varies by specialty and is probably highly variable, but does anyone know what kind of salary an academic physician who does say 80/20 research/clinical when most of their salary actually comes from grants? How much do they take out of those grants for their own salary?

Yes - highly variable.
To give you an idea of one system, at my institution, all faculty are given a salary (based on myriad factors). Then, the individual must "make" that salary. If you can get all the money through grants, then you only need to do enough clinic to maintain your certification/license (ie: 1/2 day clinic per week). So, you need to have enough grants to pay for your overhead and all the "stuff" that goes into research - and after you account for those costs, then you can pay into your salary. This may take multiple grants (or some big RO1s) to make the needed dough.
If you are on the clinical track, then you need to make enough RVUs to make your salary. You cannot make more than your salary by getting more grants or seeing extra patients. The only way to get more money is through bonuses (seeing more patients can lead to productivity bonuses). The salary can increase, nominally, each year - but the only way to improve it substantially is by going up the promotion ladder. It also helps if you have offers from other institutions and your home institution counters to keep you.

 

[staup]

Yes - highly variable.
To give you an idea of one system, at my institution, all faculty are given a salary (based on myriad factors). Then, the individual must "make" that salary. If you can get all the money through grants, then you only need to do enough clinic to maintain your certification/license (ie: 1/2 day clinic per week). So, you need to have enough grants to pay for your overhead and all the "stuff" that goes into research - and after you account for those costs, then you can pay into your salary. This may take multiple grants (or some big RO1s) to make the needed dough.
If you are on the clinical track, then you need to make enough RVUs to make your salary. You cannot make more than your salary by getting more grants or seeing extra patients. The only way to get more money is through bonuses (seeing more patients can lead to productivity bonuses). The salary can increase, nominally, each year - but the only way to improve it substantially is by going up the promotion ladder. It also helps if you have offers from other institutions and your home institution counters to keep you.

Hey, thanks for your insight. You answered a lot of my questions.

So am I right in saying your salary is fixed and it's just a matter of whether you cover your salary with grants or not? And if you don't, you have to do more clinical work or find some other way to cover it?

thanks again.

 

[gutonc]

Hey, thanks for your insight. You answered a lot of my questions.

So am I right in saying your salary is fixed and it's just a matter of whether you cover your salary with grants or not? And if you don't, you have to do more clinical work or find some other way to cover it?

thanks again.

That's kind of the definition of a salary isn't it? A fixed amount of money given to someone to do a job.

Now how that salary gets covered is a different story. Grants vs. clinical time with a few (usually 2-3) "free" years thrown in at the beginning to allow a new faculty member time to ramp up their grant writing and lab and get the fat R01 money rollin' in. This is in contrast to the mostly clinical folks whose nut gets covered by hot RVU action.

Most places will also provide bonuses for RVU production (often based on the entire group's productivity rather than individuals which helps the mostly lab-based folks and hurts the mostly clinical folks...but they're aware of it when the sign their contract). Also, clinical trials can usually put a little extra cash in your pocket (or at least provide some of the basis for your salary). Then there's additional administrative work you can do as well as consulting/speaker's bureau/pharma grants that can bump your take home pay as well.

 

[staup]

That's kind of the definition of a salary isn't it? A fixed amount of money given to someone to do a job.

Now how that salary gets covered is a different story. Grants vs. clinical time with a few (usually 2-3) "free" years thrown in at the beginning to allow a new faculty member time to ramp up their grant writing and lab and get the fat R01 money rollin' in. This is in contrast to the mostly clinical folks whose nut gets covered by hot RVU action.

Most places will also provide bonuses for RVU production (often based on the entire group's productivity rather than individuals which helps the mostly lab-based folks and hurts the mostly clinical folks...but they're aware of it when the sign their contract). Also, clinical trials can usually put a little extra cash in your pocket (or at least provide some of the basis for your salary). Then there's additional administrative work you can do as well as consulting/speaker's bureau/pharma grants that can bump your take home pay as well.

thanks.

I guess the essence of my question is if you have an outrageous amount of grant funding for a year, does your take home pay get a boost as well.

 

[gutonc]

thanks.

I guess the essence of my question is if you have an outrageous amount of grant funding for a year, does your take home pay get a boost as well.

No...mostly.

Most granting organizations (including NIH...at least for K level awards which is all I've looked at so far) and academic institutions have specific rules stating that you can't use grant money to increase your salary over and above your contracted amount. Now, that's not to say that your department can't slip you some extra "RVU-related bonus" money on the side if you manage to cover your nut @ 300% or so using only grant money. And most places (excepting the big "3 letter name" programs who will expect you to endure your penury for the honor of have a job at such an august institution) will find some way to reward you for your mad grant writing skillz.

But keep in mind the "indirect costs" side of things. Your salary may be $150K but keeping you and your lab (a tech, "rent and utilities", etc) up and running will probably cost 2-3x that annually. Nevermind the costs of actually doing the science you want to do. While a certain portion of the rent/utilities stuff is built into major grants, not all of it is...not by a long shot.

So, if you've got 2 or 3 R01/equivalents (worth $1.5-2.5M over the course of 5 years), you can probably afford to run a reasonably sized lab (1 tech, 3-5 grad students/post-docs...assuming they mostly have training grant or other salary funding) doing moderately priced science (not WalMart science but not Louis Vuitton either) and still get your $150K+benes without much struggle.