Dermatology PA's Salary

[bbpiano1]

I went to see a dermatologist today and apparently the whole practice is run by two PA's (the MD has an office about an hour away). The walls were paper thin and from my brief time there, I get the feeling that all this PA does is hand out doxycycline prescriptions and refer people for cosmetic procedures. Wikipedia claims that derm PA's make between $100,00-$200,000. Can they really be making more than some family practitioners?

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[Eta Carinae]

damn, derm has pretend-MD PAs too?

 

[deleted6669]

I went to see a dermatologist today and apparently the whole practice is run by two PA's (the MD has an office about an hour away). The walls were paper thin and from my brief time there, I get the feeling that all this PA does is hand out doxycycline prescriptions and refer people for cosmetic procedures. Wikipedia claims that derm PA's make between $100,00-$200,000. Can they really be making more than some family practitioners?

yup,
derm pa's 2 yrs ago averaged 103k
http://physician-assistant.advanceweb.com/editorial/content/editorial.aspx?CC=108754
there is even a derm pa residency program:
http://www.appap.org/tabid/88/xmmid...le/LID/BLIST-3-VEND-200911291150/Default.aspx
lots of pa's make more than family docs.
em/surgery/ortho/neurosurg/derm pa's can easily make 125k-150k+.
I work with an em pa who made 200k last yr with overtime.

 

[RN-to-MD]

I'll go you one further, I am an RN on med/surg ward and I make $100k/yr working 24-32 hours/week, never more than 32/week, and I get 4 weeks/year paid vacation.

So yes, you CAN be a non-Doc healthcare provider and make similar salaries w/o the nasty debt. I'm not fulfilled in nursing and I've actually just finished a round of interviews at several MD programs mostly in DC/Philly/NYC area, I have one acceptance so far, BUT I am seriously considering going for a PA program instead. I also know I want to do derm and the prospect of 3 years total of education, then out into the world of real salaries is quite enticing.

It's a tough decision and I fret over it every single day, but, honestly, I value my off/private time SO MUCH, I think the time demands placed on med students (esp in 3rd year rotations) and residents are postively barbaric and inhumane, not to mention unhealthy.

just wanted to add my 2 cents/sense
c

 

[eddie13231]

I'll go you one further, I am an RN on med/surg ward and I make $100k/yr working 24-32 hours/week, never more than 32/week, and I get 4 weeks/year paid vacation.

So yes, you CAN be a non-Doc healthcare provider and make similar salaries w/o the nasty debt. I'm not fulfilled in nursing and I've actually just finished a round of interviews at several MD programs mostly in DC/Philly/NYC area, I have one acceptance so far, BUT I am seriously considering going for a PA program instead. I also know I want to do derm and the prospect of 3 years total of education, then out into the world of real salaries is quite enticing.

It's a tough decision and I fret over it every single day, but, honestly, I value my off/private time SO MUCH, I think the time demands placed on med students (esp in 3rd year rotations) and residents are postively barbaric and inhumane, not to mention unhealthy.

just wanted to add my 2 cents/sense
c

Let me save you the hassle: Don't go to med school. You think derm is cush but it takes SO many years before you get to that point. Unless you are 100% comitted to putting in a ton of time (ie studying until 10 even after your 7-5 shift) when a resident let along med school, just go to PA school.

 

[Dral]

I'll go you one further, I am an RN on med/surg ward and I make $100k/yr working 24-32 hours/week, never more than 32/week, and I get 4 weeks/year paid vacation.

So yes, you CAN be a non-Doc healthcare provider and make similar salaries w/o the nasty debt. I'm not fulfilled in nursing and I've actually just finished a round of interviews at several MD programs mostly in DC/Philly/NYC area, I have one acceptance so far, BUT I am seriously considering going for a PA program instead. I also know I want to do derm and the prospect of 3 years total of education, then out into the world of real salaries is quite enticing.

It's a tough decision and I fret over it every single day, but, honestly, I value my off/private time SO MUCH, I think the time demands placed on med students (esp in 3rd year rotations) and residents are postively barbaric and inhumane, not to mention unhealthy.

just wanted to add my 2 cents/sense
c

I try to not give absolute advice on message boards, but I'll just echo some things that the last poster hinted at. To be honest, if one studies hard enough for step I (you sorta have to if you want to be competitive), 3rd year rotations are a breeze.

I think I studied from 8AM until 10PM almost every day from January until the middle of April. I may have taken about 5 days 'off' which means studying for 5 or 6 hours. The last month was scheduled studying...meaning there was a paper that told me what to do and when to do it (self created):
8:00 Take a 50 question UW quiz.
9:00 Read chapter 4 of FA
10:30 Read 50 pages of Physio
11:30 lunch
12:15 Go over UW quiz...

etc.

It's brutal...you've gotta be able to bust out the 'self-imposed' brutality though. I'm not saying everyone has to do that to perform well, but I believe most people do. I'm not a derm resident, but the way I envision things, residency and a number of years post-residency entail a lot of outside studying (albeit maybe not as hardcore as step prep). So it's not going to be 8-5. No advice contained within, just a friendly heads up.

 

[deleted6669]

I think the time demands placed on med students (esp in 3rd year rotations) ...are postively barbaric and inhumane, not to mention unhealthy.

c

sorry to break this to you but the 2nd yr of pa school and the 3rd yr of med school are very similar in regards to hours worked, responsibility, call, etc
at my pa program( taught at a prominent east coast med school) pa and ms 3 students were scheduled interchangeably. I had a 54 week 2nd yr of pa school with over 3000 hrs of clinical time including a surgical rotation with > 100 hrs/week at the hospital.

 

[kralwok]

sorry to break this to you but the 2nd yr of pa school and the 3rd yr of med school are very similar in regards to hours worked, responsibility, call, etc
at my pa program( taught at a prominent east coast med school) pa and ms 3 students were scheduled interchangeably. I had a 54 week 2nd yr of pa school with over 3000 hrs of clinical time including a surgical rotation with > 100 hrs/week at the hospital.

yeah, but there is certainly no denying that md's have a lot more years of long hours... i'm not saying PA's don't work hard, but as an md you have 3rd year, intern year, and then 3 years of derm residency. not to mention if the person doesn't get into derm then they are looking at insane residency hours in some other specialty.

 

[deleted6669]

yeah, but there is certainly no denying that md's have a lot more years of long hours... i'm not saying PA's don't work hard, but as an md you have 3rd year, intern year, and then 3 years of derm residency. not to mention if the person doesn't get into derm then they are looking at insane residency hours in some other specialty.

very true.

 

[Renova]

sorry to break this to you but the 2nd yr of pa school and the 3rd yr of med school are very similar in regards to hours worked, responsibility, call, etc

I'm not sure that's true across the board.

We have PA students from a nearby school rotating with us at our university hospital on some clerkships. As I recall from last year, PA students were not expected to take call at all; some offered to take 1 overnight call per week on their own volition, but none of them were q4 like the med students and residents.

 

[deleted6669]

I'm not sure that's true across the board.

We have PA students from a nearby school rotating with us at our university hospital on some clerkships. As I recall from last year, PA students were not expected to take call at all; some offered to take 1 overnight call per week on their own volition, but none of them were q4 like the med students and residents.

I had q2 call on surgery...and always spent the whole day there...also had call for ob, etc

 

[snowconelover2]

I had q2 call on surgery...and always spent the whole day there...also had call for ob, etc

Just because you have had some amazing pa experience doesn't mean that it is uniform across the country. You are the official defender of the pa on sdn and you just go looking to talk about how well trained you are and they you extrapolate it to all pa's. Well I also got an n=1 for you! My cousin who is in pa school has had the complete opposite experience that you have had. Face it, the fact that makes medical school the gold standard is that everyone has had very similar experiences.

Now, please leave the dermatology board. We have respect for pa's in the proper roles. But when you come on here and act like you could become a board certified dermatologist by working as a dermatology pa for three years on top of your amazing medical school esque pa school, it offends people. If the shoe were on the other foot, or god forbid we put down pa's you would come back spitting fire.

So why don't you show the same respect for once. Now, from reading all your threads in the past i have a feeling that you are going to spend a lot of time contradicting yourself and saying this is not what you meant. But face it, it is what you meant and no one is buying that you are aren't trying to claim some sort of equivalence.

 

[deleted6669]

dude, look at the title of the thread.....understand why a pa might comment?
also I'm not a derm pa...look at my username and signature.....emedpa...that would be emergency medicine....something I have done for 23 years...what were you doing 23 years ago....?
and N>1 as everyone in my program and all of the programs I teach for (10 programs) schedules their pa and medstudents interchangeably. there may be pa schools with flaky rotation schedules and there probably are a few med schools with flaky rotation schedules...
and as I said above I recognize that the medschool route/residency is a longer path...I was agreeing with a previous poster about this.....in post #9.
but as far as pa2 vs ms3 I would put my personal clinical yr up against any ms3 out there with regards to call, rounding requirements, hrs in the hospital, etc.
try to answer an op's question around here and get dumped on.
I'm done with this thread.

 

[werd]

from the perspective of the dermatologist, PA's can often bring in more money to a practice than they are paid. on the other hand, they bring an increased liability, since you are responsible for any mistakes they may make... so you'd better trust your PA/NP's. the only significant error i've seen so far in my training was a patient with porphyria cutanea tarda who kept having his dorsal hands cryo'd for presumed (refractory..) AK's. if a PA can generate 200k a year for a practice it's not too surprising their salaries hit six digits. everyone wins... as long as the PA is good.

 

[Cirrus83]

I had q2 call on surgery...and always spent the whole day there...also had call for ob, etc

You have a pretty unique experience. PA students always had a *lot* less clinical hours where I've been and didn't ever have to take call. And even without call their inpatient and clinic days were shorter. I've got nothing against PAs but your experience is really not generalizable and I know quite a few PAs. I actually wish there was an easy way to know what the differences in training between the programs are.