Great jobs do exist and I have one of them. Sharing as a data point - not to brag.
35 hours/week average
10 weeks vacation
PP at the edge of large metro area - signing out pretty much everything except medical kidney and nerve/muscle (6 years into practice, partner after 5)
Salary would rather not say, but higher than the other numbers so far in thread.
We have one non-partner and three partners. Plan on 5 year partnership track for associate.
I believe LNS was also extremely geographically-restricted in his job search but found this unicorn job anyway. And I find it amusing that an academic pathologist posts a salary of $450k only to be accused of being "fake news". While I agree with coroner that many pathologists will have to choose between killing it (moneywise) and lifestyle, some people will end up with both and some people will end up with neither.
Caveat emptor: Between the expansion of hospital systems and government regulation, it may be only a matter of time until all MD's are employees and not owners. As a partner, I would love to know more about what threats LNS currently sees to his practice (though I hope there are none and I wish him the best!). If you are an employee, you will never earn as much as if you are an owner - but some people do not want to be responsible and be the owner. This is an element that is lacking in our pathology training programs.
There are academicians who work at places that give them a lot of time off and take no cut of their side hustle. They drive nice cars. At the same institutions, there are faculty who drive crappy cars but sleep on their couches half the year.
Re: Ivy vs. connections. Connections beat Ivy, but Ivy typically have large programs with fellowship programs and larger faculty with turnover. A non-wallflower resident at a large program is gonna know a lot of pathologists by the time they are done. At the biggest programs, they could easily be friends with practicing pathologists in most states by the time they start fellowship. If no one likes you, connections probably work against you. Your co-residents will be your worst enemies when it comes to finding a job. The problem with large programs is that they typically have at least a few residents who never should have been accepted to medical school in the 1st place.
A friend of mine once told me that it was amazing how little he has to work each day for how much $$ he makes. I told him not to tell the government that. Compared to primary care, we are lucky in pathology. On average, the applicants we match are terrible. They may be good and intelligent people, but they are not competitive on paper compared to other specialities. Yet the average income exceeds that of primary care with better lifestyle. Should we close path programs? I haven't heard a good argument against this. The only requirement seems to be that we complete 50 autopsies a year, which can be shared with other residents, yet there is no requirement for # of specimens we gross or preview? Programs where residents leave at 2PM everyday? Programs where residents have to prepare cytospins? Hello CAP, I want you to meet the ABP?
Finally, money is not everything to every person. If your success is defined by the $$ you make, there is nothing wrong with that, and successful people will find success. There are more jobs in industry these days for pathologists, and those can be lucrative if you cannot find a good clinical job. As has been mentioned numerous times in this forum, every job (academic, non-academic, PP, non-PP) is different and hard to compare. Even mills (where you'll probably make the least % of what you bill) appeal to those who simply want to push glass and do nothing else.