I don't ask this question to decide if the position is a worthwhile one to take due to the extra money. It is silly to think that a little extra money would motivate people be chief. I think that programs should pay them a little extra out of professional respect since the expectation is that they will do more work. Ironically, if a chief resident has very little ego and does not relish the respect or super chief resident powers that the title brings, what else is there? The ability to make changes in the program for the benefit of residents? Hardly, as Steve has pointed out on numerous posts.
Sorry to be so base, but if I am doing more work I think I should get paid more.
I was surprised that more people have not shared information about their programs, but then I realized that the chiefs do not really want to publicize to their other senior friends that they get paid more. People don't like to talk about how much they make.
As an aside, at our program there are two residents that are funded by the VA and get paid from there directly. They are getting paid about five thousand dollars more per year for some reason. Again, hard to investigate since no one likes to share their income information. I think our program administration is not aware of this.
I took the position because I wanted to help create a better program for myself and my colleagues (the residents). The extra money wasn't important, it was just a nice bonus. I knew that Dr. DeLisa, our Chairman, was highly motivated to improve the educational experience for his residents, and would likely respond to input from residents who could articulate the educational needs/concerns of the residents.
My plan "paid" off, for myself, and I would like to believe for the residents as well. Even now, many years later, I still get a "thank you" now and then when I bump into former residents at the AAPMR meetings. I remain friends/close friends with many of the residents in my class (especially my co-Chief), and succeeding classes. My positive interaction with our Chairman and faculty facilitated recommendations to fellowship and faculty positions later. The positive experience helped nurture a sense of self-empowerment that I carry with me to this day.
In summary, if you want to be (a) Chief, don't do it for the money. If you want to do it to help create a better training program/experience for yourself and your colleagues, to the extent that you can (or are allowed), then you can hope to be paid in ways that aren't best measured in dollars and cents.
Finally, I should quickly add that I don't think this positive experience would have been available to me in every program, or even in many programs. My program placed a high value on resident education, and with the help of our Chair, PD & fellow residents we were able to leverage that priority to greater mutual gain. If I had been in a program where "constructive feedback" is considered the hallmark of a troublemaker, then I would have never been considered for Chief. Either way, however, the money would have been irrelevant to me.
