Blood bank pathology

[average]

I know that there are fellowships in Bloodbank pathology but am wondering if there is much of a market for these graduates.

More specifically, are there many jobs available doing just BB pathology or are most of the positions just part of your duties or sandwiched with an academic/research position?

Salaries?

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[Anna Plastic]

I know that there are fellowships in Bloodbank pathology but am wondering if there is much of a market for these graduates.

More specifically, are there many jobs available doing just BB pathology or are most of the positions just part of your duties or sandwiched with an academic/research position?

Salaries?

Yes, there are fellowships in Transfusion Medicine, but it depends what you mean by "much of a market" for the graduates. There is a steady yet small stream of job positions where you do transfusion medicine full time, most of which will be associated with a donor center or an academic medical center. However, there is more of a push now for academic T.M. docs to be very clinically involved, and the benign hematologists obviously have an advantage in this field. If you are thinking about doing transfusion medicine full time at an academic center, plan on doing research, although I do know some who do clinician-educator tracks. At donor centers, the positions are quite administrative, and you have significantly less time spent in patient management in general. As much as I like transfusion medicine, I would discourage you doing a fellowship if you are thinking of doing general pathology--better to do a couple rotations in residency to brush up on the skills you need.

Salaries are modest--from what I read on this board, I suspect many would be scornful of the amount you'll get in T.M.. But on the other hand, you'll earn more than most people in America, and certainly the world. I know I will be earning less than most of my colleagues in pathology by doing T.M., but I can pay off my loans, have a nice home, and save enough for a comfortable retirement. I consider myself fortunate to have that and be able to do what I love every day.

What specifically are you thinking about with this?

 

[LADoc00]

Yes, there are fellowships in Transfusion Medicine, but it depends what you mean by "much of a market" for the graduates. There is a steady yet small stream of job positions where you do transfusion medicine full time, most of which will be associated with a donor center or an academic medical center. However, there is more of a push now for academic T.M. docs to be very clinically involved, and the benign hematologists obviously have an advantage in this field. If you are thinking about doing transfusion medicine full time at an academic center, plan on doing research, although I do know some who do clinician-educator tracks. At donor centers, the positions are quite administrative, and you have significantly less time spent in patient management in general. As much as I like transfusion medicine, I would discourage you doing a fellowship if you are thinking of doing general pathology--better to do a couple rotations in residency to brush up on the skills you need.

Salaries are modest--from what I read on this board, I suspect many would be scornful of the amount you'll get in T.M.. But on the other hand, you'll earn more than most people in America, and certainly the world. I know I will be earning less than most of my colleagues in pathology by doing T.M., but I can pay off my loans, have a nice home, and save enough for a comfortable retirement. I consider myself fortunate to have that and be able to do what I love every day.

What specifically are you thinking about with this?

I would agree more and more faculty spots in TM/BB are going to internists, who in my opinion are better equipped to deal with the clinical issues surrounding this speciality. Sadly, path training in most places puts such little emphasis on real TM training, that I think the future will be dominated by IM/Hematologists. A pathologist considering the BB-TM arena would be well served to get an advantage boost from something like a formal MBA program focusing on healthcare, moreso than other areas of CP IMO.

 

[yaah]

TM jobs (like donor centers, red cross, etc) are becoming more rare as the centers consolidate. So as a result, jobs aren't really being created. When directors retire, their work is just done by someone else. There still are jobs that open up, but from what I hear a lot of the process in getting said jobs is through word of mouth.

 

[Anna Plastic]

TM jobs (like donor centers, red cross, etc) are becoming more rare as the centers consolidate. So as a result, jobs aren't really being created. When directors retire, their work is just done by someone else. There still are jobs that open up, but from what I hear a lot of the process in getting said jobs is through word of mouth.

I agree somewhat with you, yaah, but there is a real "greying" of the TM docs out there right now. Not a lot of people pursue fellowship training in TM; there are more than a few TM directors who do not have fellowship training. There has been discussion I've seen in the TM literature and heard at TM meetings about how it is becoming hard to do succession planning. The replacements are expected to have a fair amount of either benign hematology experience or fellowship training in TM. In my limited job search experience from this last year, there were multiple positions I learned about, not only by word of mouth, but by advertisements in Transfusion, ABC newsletter, and at conferences. I saw probably a dozen or so decent opportunities across the country.

As for what LaDOC said, I agree that business training would be good--not necessarily a full-on MBA, but certainly more training/experience than what is typically offered through pathology training. And as another clarion call to the chipping away of pathology practices by other specialties, I think transfusion medicine is certainly an area where this is an issue. Most pathologists are at a disadvantage with the clinical training as compared to the anesthesiology/hematology folks in TM. But the clinical types aren't nearly as saavy as running/managing labs as pathologists are.

TM is very multidisciplinary--no matter what your training is, you gotta bust a hump to learn about the stuff you weren't trained in (business included). Pathologists shouldn't hand over the blood banks to the hematologists just because we feel disadvantaged clinically, because they have to play catch-up too. You can learn clinical judgement as a pathologist, but you gotta get your butt into the O.R./ do rounds/go to clinic so that a) your clinicians see you and develop a trust relationship, and b) so you learn about what the issue is in the middle of the fray. Nothing is more annoying to a surgeon who has a bleeding patient than to get a phone call arguing over blood product use, but they sure do respond better when you have a mask and scrubs on looking over the curtain. There is a lot pathologists offer this field; we shouldn't just hand it over to hematology without a fight.

 

[LADoc00]

I used to think TM was the way to go, especially for the CP only crowd. Im not saying its that different now but certainly its not the no-brainer it was say 8-10 years ago. You really have to hustle when it comes to getting jobs. The whole process I would imagine is very much focused on your managerial ability rather than knowledge base, very different than for AP applicants. I really a full-on formal MBA training at a solid place (UChicago, Northwestern, Cal, Stanford, Wharton, Duke... of course the legendary HBS etc.) is almost sine qua non, if not today then in mere years for a top notch job in Blood banking.

 

[yaah]

MPH seems like it would be useful too - a lot of TM is now utilizing public health.

 

[LADoc00]

MPH seems like it would be useful too - a lot of TM is now utilizing public health.

MBA>>MPH in nearly all situation IMO.

for Example:

MPH Degree Concentrations
Concentration goals and areas of interest are described below:
Clinical Effectiveness (CLE) ?? hahahahaha
Family and Community Health (FCH) ---hahahahaha
Health Care Management and Policy (CMP) maybe okay
International Health (IH) ?? YIpeee, everyone has AIDS!
Law and Public Health (LPH) maybe okay
Occupational and Environmental Health (OEH) lame
Quantitative Methods (QM) umm okay

overall, Seriously LAME!!

Now B-school:

The HBS Healthcare Initiative was created to help prepare tomorrow’s health care leaders to address the complex problems in the global health care industry from a multi-disciplinary, business-oriented approach. Within the MBA Program, students may:
1.) Pursue specific health care interests through elective curriculum options and cross registration with other schools;
2.) Take an active part in the student Healthcare Club and related student activities
3.) Receive career development assistance from industry-experienced coaches
4.) Interview with leading biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and health services organizations.
5.) Participate in field-based learning which includes both independent studies and a field study seminar in health care
6.) Network with health care alumni in all facets of the industry.
------------
=Mad Bank

 

[Anna Plastic]

I'm with LaDOC here in regards to TM--if you had to do another degree, choose MBA over MPH. But I think the field of TM is too huge to think that just business training is what will get you the "top notch jobs" (not quite sure if we have the same definition of top notch, LaDOC). The majority of people who I think have the most name recognition in the field hadn't arrived their on the basis of their business saavy, but by their clinical skill and research acumen (there are some very notable exceptions to this, though). Having said that, I think there is a chasm in TM between the folks who produce the product (and who need to have the chops of a drug manufacturer) and the folks who dispense the product (and who need to have strong lab medicine/clinical skills). There is waaaay too much to know on each of those parts to try and be a master of it all.

 

[dermpathlover]

TM fellowship is for girls. In fact all of CP is for girls.

 

[LADoc00]

TM fellowship is for girls. In fact all of CP is for girls.

Sheesh, okay, someone get me a bat!!!

 

[yaah]

I dunno. I think MPH can help you. However, I would also wager that the average starting salary for someone with an MD and an MPH is 50% lower than anyone else, because they get those low paying public health jobs. So I guess it's more like having an MPH would be good to get you a job, but not a well paying one.

 

[dermpathlover]

Sheesh, okay, someone get me a bat!!!

Dude, I'm just joking around, but it does seem good for woman with kids. The 4 TM attendings here are only "on service" 1 week month. They all seem to be able to roll in around 9-10am and cut-out by 3pm if they want unless there is some meeting to go to. They don't really *do* much though they are responsible for a lot. It seems perfect for a female doc married to an I-banker or plastic surgeon or hot shot corporate lawyer. I can't imagine they get paid over 150,000 a year.

I don't know what they do when they are not on service. I think they just go to a couple meetings a day and make sure the blood isn't going to run out.

 

[Anna Plastic]

Dude, I'm just joking around, but it does seem good for woman with kids. The 4 TM attendings here are only "on service" 1 week month. They all seem to be able to roll in around 9-10am and cut-out by 3pm if they want unless there is some meeting to go to. They don't really *do* much though they are responsible for a lot. It seems perfect for a female doc married to an I-banker or plastic surgeon or hot shot corporate lawyer.

There may be practices out there where there is an abundance of covering physicians, and it may be that they don't "do" much (although I suspect they do more than what you see). However, that is the exception. In other places, there is perhaps only one attending to essentially cover an entire hospital. That equates to 24-7-365 call. My experience with TM fellowship in a large city is that when I'm on call, I am woken up 4-5 times a night with calls, oftentimes pretty complex calls requiring 1-3 hours of work each. I regularly am putting in 65+ hour weeks, and I see my attendings working harder. One of my attendings was actually taken to task by our communications department because she was routinely getting over 40 pages a day (which for some reason exceeded their quota for a per pager expense--what malarky).

Most TM docs I know work hard, on par at least with other pathologists (and have much worse call schedules, to boot). Certainly the field is not a female-dominated field. On the contrary, I would say many of the well-known figures are male: Jim Aubuchon, Chris Hillyer, Sunny Dzik, Ron Strauss, Tom Price, etc..

Before giving in to such misogynist musings, dermpathlover, I'd strongly suggest double checking your facts first.

 

[Patholog]

It is my understanding and experience that TM has the potential to be extremely lucrative if one takes into account procedural things, such as plasma exchange and stem cell harvesting. My institution bills ~$15,000 for a stem cell collection, CD34 selection, storage, etc. Stem cell therapy, especially autologous (to avoid any political discussions on this forum) could really start to pick up, especially if cardiac myoplasty comes onboard. There are multicenter trials going on right now that hopefully will show a statistically significant positive difference between stem cell vs. non-stem cell groups in the setting of acute MI/unstable angina, etc.

Just think how much good one could do and how much one could earn if all patients with MI/angina were treated with stem cell therapies.

Stem cell collection, selection, etc still seems weighted towards pathology as opposed to hematology, but I could be mistaken.

 

[dermpathlover]

I should take back what I said.

I don't know a single woman doc married to a plastic surgeon. Most all woman docs I know are single (and not dating) or married to orthos, neurosurgeons, radiologists, cardiologists, GIs, I-bankers, or corporate lawyers.

The few plastic surgeon residents I know are all single because they are smart enough to know it would be a huge mistake to settle down before they are 45.

 

[djmd]

I should take back what I said.

I don't know a single woman doc married to a plastic surgeon. Most all woman docs I know are single (and not dating) or married to orthos, neurosurgeons, radiologists, cardiologists, GIs, I-bankers, or corporate lawyers.

The few plastic surgeon residents I know are all single because they are smart enough to know it would be a huge mistake to settle down before they are 45.

Seriously man, the more you talk the less we listen...

 

[DruidDoc]

Dude, I'm just joking around, but it does seem good for woman with kids. The 4 TM attendings here are only "on service" 1 week month. They all seem to be able to roll in around 9-10am and cut-out by 3pm if they want unless there is some meeting to go to. They don't really *do* much though they are responsible for a lot. It seems perfect for a female doc married to an I-banker or plastic surgeon or hot shot corporate lawyer. I can't imagine they get paid over 150,000 a year.

I don't know what they do when they are not on service. I think they just go to a couple meetings a day and make sure the blood isn't going to run out.

Actually, I know one that makes over 200K. Maybe it's rare, I don't really know, but he does pretty well.