Academic Surgery Without Protected Research Time

[filter07]

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I'm hoping to bring some practical discussion to the Surgery forum.

Many fellowships after General Surgery are attainable without protected research time. Many of these academically minded fellowships require research, and a graduating fellow will likely have a few publications, or at least research experience under their belt. Would these fellows be able to find a job in academia, or would they be relegated to the community? What if the fellowship was relatively prestigious? Would that pale in comparison to the relative paucity of publications?

I'm trying to decide whether to go into the lab. I can see myself in academic surgery but I don't want to "waste" 2 years to get there, only to do more research as a fellow. Would someone who does research as a resident AND a fellow be significantly more competitive for an academic job compared to someone who mostly did research as a fellow?

Followup question... I'm hearing that the salaries between academics and private practice are evening out. Is there any data or at least anecdotes to gives us an idea of what ballpark figures we're talking about?

Lastly, can someone comment on the benefits package of academia and how much (in dollar figures) that adds to one's salary? I don't know for sure but I'm guessing a private practice general surgeon whose income is 250K would have to pay out of pocket for health and malpractice insurance, bringing his/her net income down to the 200K range or thereabouts. In academia those costs would be included by the university, and so someone who makes 200K in academia would be on par with someone who makes 250K in practice. (Just a hypothetical, I don't vouch for the accuracy of those numbers)

Any thoughts?

 

[Blade28]

Which fellowship are you interested in?

 

[filter07]

CT, Vascular, and MIS

 

[geekgirl]

while some in academia may make more than those in private practice, this is not the norm. for the most part, if you join a well organized group you have the potential to make far more money in private practice than in academia, especially in fields such as vascular.

that said, there are benefits to being at an academic institute. from a department to take care of benefits etc, to the options to do more avant garde surgeries with the resources that a large institute offer. but if money is your goal, academia and the associated teaching, research roles may not be what you are interested in devoting your time to.

i am academically focused, so i appreciate the environment of an academic institutions. but don't go into it thinking it is a thing that it is not. there are many quite distinct challenges in an academic vs private practice setting. our last years vascular fellows chose 2 very different paths (private practice vs academia). and both choices were great for each of them, but hugely different in terms of jobs.

so first - residency. choosing research vs not should only be a consideration in order to get a fellowship. there is no guarantee that anything you do research on now will even be relevant by the time you finish fellowship. so decide if you like the process and want the time off. if not, go straight through or use the time to get into the fellowship of your dream. the rest will figure itself out. it is impossible to predict what variables may come into play by the time you are done and make these decisions. life changes. you change.

just my perspective.