ASCP Resident Council Fellowship & Job Market Survey

[exPCM]

http://www.ascp.org/careerLinks/pdf/2007ResidentJobSurvey.pdf

I highly recommend reading this report.
Some things that I found interesting.
1. Only 76% of those seeking jobs had received an offer (This is being asked of PGY4 & up in May of their FINAL YEAR OF TRAINING at the time of the RISE exam). This would mean that 24% did not have an offer less than 2 months before completing residency/fellowship. I do not know of any other field in medicine with such a high percentage of finishing residents not having any job offers.
2. The average starting salary (excluding benefits) from those job offers was $150,000-250,000 (43%),
with 12% offered <$100,000, 36% offered $100,000-150,000, and 9% offered >$250,000.
So 48% of the job offers were for $150,000 or less. This is family practice/pediatrician type of money. Also $150,000 -250,000 is a very wide range. I think they should modify the survey next year to give tighter ranges such as 150-175, 175-200, etc.

I tend to believe the increasing numbers of pathology residents per year will make the employment situation worse. We are now taking >500 path residents per year in the match versus less than 400 five years ago. See
http://www.im.org/AAIM/PublicPolicy/Docs/Match/AdvancedData2007.pdf

There were 2179 (about 436/yr) path residents spread out over 5 years in 2003-2004. Now we have dropped to four years for AP/CP training and there were 2316 residents (about 579/yr) spread out over four years in 2006-2007. See:
http://www.acgme.org/adspublic/ and look at approved and actual numbers of residents. 436 --> 579 is an approximately 33% increase in residents per year. I do not believe the job market can support that.
The only people I hear saying the job market is fine are Fred Silva of USCAP and then seeing anecdotal posts from various residents describing how they knew a resident who got a good job. The figures in the ASCP survey which were based on the responses of greater than 600 residents/fellows in their final year of training are more compelling to me than anecdotes.

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[LADoc00]

76% seems high. At one point in the 90s that number was like 50%.

Pathology has always had this astronomical failure to find work secondary to mind boggling overtraining by academia ever since the reimbursement mechanism for CP changed in the 80s.

Anyone in the 250k and up category are likely a combo of dermpath, GI or GU fellows. I cant see a run of the mill surg path fellow pullling that $$$ down.

The interesting thing I want to point is the 12% at LESS 100K. I know several boarded pathologists making in the 80K range.

Then you have people in the 800K+ range (or even the vaunted 7-figure club), no question pathology is the land of the haves and have nots. The have nots essentially are marginalized worker bees, I cant think of any other field in medicine that works with such massive dichotomy.

 

[yaah]

The only people I hear saying the job market is fine are Fred Silva of USCAP and then seeing anecdotal posts from various residents describing how they knew a resident who got a good job. The figures in the ASCP survey which were based on the responses of greater than 600 residents/fellows in their final year of training are more compelling to me than anecdotes.

It is an interesting study. As I have posted before, it's confusing to me (the job market situation). Because it is more than simple anecdotes that residents are getting good jobs. But it's also more than anecdotes that qualified people are not getting good jobs. My impression is that the job market is tiered, and not just towards GI/GU/derm fellows. It's tiered in terms of competitive applicants versus "average" applicants (many of the former do have these fellowships, but not all). To see who fits into each category you probably have to factor in fellowship, training program, who is recommending you, and your interpersonal skills. Luck and timing also helps, as perhaps does where you are looking. But as I have said before, I have seen many good residents who have multiple good job offers.

I'm not terribly concerned about the 10% at less than 100k, a lot of those are probably part timers or people who otherwise give lots of tradeoffs in order to get something else.



There are some odd statements in there which make me question the validity. "Of those 461 who had either applied or were planning on pursuing a job, 50% hadn't formally applied." What? A few months before the job would start and you haven't done anything? To me, that takes up most of the lack of success in finding one right there. I would also be interested to know how many of these 461 didn't do any fellowships.

And also, at the end, ASCP says in considering all this data, "The job market continues to be relatively strong." That statement doesn't seem to mesh with some of the data. But why would they say it otherwise?

So, as I said, I don't get it. I am going to see what my experience is, and try not to listen to much to either alarmists or to kool aid drinkers. These numbers are interesting but there are a lot of inconsistencies, both anecdotal and evidence based.

In case anyone cares, I have no vested interest in whether people see the job market as good or bad or indifferent.