Graveyard of Pathology! ! !

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I choose pathology because I like it
good lifestyle, less patient contact, no night calls, flexible working hours. What i did not know is that --- "no jobs"
On an average every hospital may need several clinicans like hospitalists etc but may need only a couple of pathologists to take care of the entire hospital load. Also there is very narrow room for error in pathology hence the newly trained out of residency pathologists are not trusted by the old folks.
I have several of my friends/foes who are board certified AP/CP have completed 1 fellowship and are going for 2nd one and may be third one.
This is pathetic unlike medicine/peds/family medicine where there are jobs out there even after 3 yrs of training. I am seriously reconsidering a midlife career change ( of course after completing 4 yrs of AP/CP cos "a bird in hand is worth 2 in bush") and investing another 3 years in IM/FP rather than dragging into 3 or 2 one year fellowships and still highly uncertain in securing a job.
Recently my institution hired a pathologist who did 3 fellowships. surg path+GU+cytopath. This one was choosen out of a pool of >35+ applicants.
CAP is promoting "transformation". . . what kind of transformation are they talking about ? First control the production of new pathologists and make sure whichever are produced get at least some job.
I feel if there is any other speciality more miserable than ours --- it is Nuclear medicine. We are the second worst pathetic job market in medical field.

 

[KCShaw]

I dunno, the last person I knew who did nuclear medicine claimed he accepted a small town job (his words, at the time) for a little under a half mil per year, right out of fellowship...

Might have been exaggerating.

 

[gschl1234]

I dunno, the last person I knew who did nuclear medicine claimed he accepted a small town job (his words, at the time) for a little under a half mil per year, right out of fellowship...

Might have been exaggerating.

 

[Neuronix]

I dunno, the last person I knew who did nuclear medicine claimed he accepted a small town job (his words, at the time) for a little under a half mil per year, right out of fellowship...

Might have been exaggerating.

There's two paths into nucs.

Radiology residency to nuclear medicine fellowship makes this sort of job prospect possible. Of course getting a well paying position is possible out of most radiology fellowships.

Doing a nuclear medicine residency means good luck getting a job at all. See this thread: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=719123.

 

[gbwillner]

I choose pathology because I like it
good lifestyle, less patient contact, no night calls, flexible working hours. What i did not know is that --- "no jobs"
On an average every hospital may need several clinicans like hospitalists etc but may need only a couple of pathologists to take care of the entire hospital load. Also there is very narrow room for error in pathology hence the newly trained out of residency pathologists are not trusted by the old folks.
I have several of my friends/foes who are board certified AP/CP have completed 1 fellowship and are going for 2nd one and may be third one.
This is pathetic unlike medicine/peds/family medicine where there are jobs out there even after 3 yrs of training. I am seriously reconsidering a midlife career change ( of course after completing 4 yrs of AP/CP cos "a bird in hand is worth 2 in bush") and investing another 3 years in IM/FP rather than dragging into 3 or 2 one year fellowships and still highly uncertain in securing a job.
Recently my institution hired a pathologist who did 3 fellowships. surg path+GU+cytopath. This one was choosen out of a pool of >35+ applicants.
CAP is promoting "transformation". . . what kind of transformation are they talking about ? First control the production of new pathologists and make sure whichever are produced get at least some job.
I feel if there is any other speciality more miserable than ours --- it is Nuclear medicine. We are the second worst pathetic job market in medical field.

Are your friends applying for a 2nd or 3rd fellowship because they can't find jobs or are they just lining up fellowships? Maybe you should go out and try to find a job before condemning your entire field. If you can't find one, then maybe I'll feel for you.
Re: Nuc Med... and all specialties... it is about supply and demand. Of course there are more medicine and FM jobs than pathology jobs. There are a lot more medicine and FM residents too. FM programs routinely do not fill since no one wants to do it. Medicine is >1/2 FMGs for the same reason. On the other hand Nuc Med is the opposite, in a way. From what I saw when I matched, there were very few Nuc Med spots in the entire country. Why? There is no demand. What do they do anyway? HIDA scans?
Secondly, there is simply a different approach to getting a job in medicine vs. Path. In medicine, the hospital hires you. They need internists every year, and usually lots of them. They are all salaried employees. They will recruit you during residency, since they need meat to generate revenue. They set up workshops and hire you through a recruiter that doesn't know crap about medicine. Path is different- Hospitals rarely hire pathologists, and instead contract out with external groups. These are usually small businesses, and can't (and don't want to) hire people at resident workshops. They only hire maybe 1 every so many years. Across the country, the number of hires should equal the number of fellows and residents looking for a job. These groups simply do not have the appartus in place to hire the way hospitals do. In path, you get jobs by networking, and seeking out businesses that are hiring. That means that if you are introverted or come from a program with a crappy alumni network, you are at a huge disadvantage.
I personally know only 1 person who's doing 3 fellowships, and it has nothing to do with not finding a job. Most people I know will only do 1. Also, no one even tries to get a job out of residency anymore. I know 2 people who tried, and both were successful in finding jobs without any fellowships.

 

[earmuff]

I choose pathology because I like it
good lifestyle, less patient contact, no night calls, flexible working hours. What i did not know is that --- "no jobs"
On an average every hospital may need several clinicans like hospitalists etc but may need only a couple of pathologists to take care of the entire hospital load. Also there is very narrow room for error in pathology hence the newly trained out of residency pathologists are not trusted by the old folks.
I have several of my friends/foes who are board certified AP/CP have completed 1 fellowship and are going for 2nd one and may be third one.
This is pathetic unlike medicine/peds/family medicine where there are jobs out there even after 3 yrs of training. I am seriously reconsidering a midlife career change ( of course after completing 4 yrs of AP/CP cos "a bird in hand is worth 2 in bush") and investing another 3 years in IM/FP rather than dragging into 3 or 2 one year fellowships and still highly uncertain in securing a job.
Recently my institution hired a pathologist who did 3 fellowships. surg path+GU+cytopath. This one was choosen out of a pool of >35+ applicants.
CAP is promoting "transformation". . . what kind of transformation are they talking about ? First control the production of new pathologists and make sure whichever are produced get at least some job.
I feel if there is any other speciality more miserable than ours --- it is Nuclear medicine. We are the second worst pathetic job market in medical field.

Welcome back exPCM... we missed you so much 😍

 

[2121115]

I choose pathology because I like it
good lifestyle, less patient contact, no night calls, flexible working hours. What i did not know is that --- "no jobs"
On an average every hospital may need several clinicans like hospitalists etc but may need only a couple of pathologists to take care of the entire hospital load. Also there is very narrow room for error in pathology hence the newly trained out of residency pathologists are not trusted by the old folks.
I have several of my friends/foes who are board certified AP/CP have completed 1 fellowship and are going for 2nd one and may be third one.
This is pathetic unlike medicine/peds/family medicine where there are jobs out there even after 3 yrs of training. I am seriously reconsidering a midlife career change ( of course after completing 4 yrs of AP/CP cos "a bird in hand is worth 2 in bush") and investing another 3 years in IM/FP rather than dragging into 3 or 2 one year fellowships and still highly uncertain in securing a job.
Recently my institution hired a pathologist who did 3 fellowships. surg path+GU+cytopath. This one was choosen out of a pool of >35+ applicants.
CAP is promoting "transformation". . . what kind of transformation are they talking about ? First control the production of new pathologists and make sure whichever are produced get at least some job.
I feel if there is any other speciality more miserable than ours --- it is Nuclear medicine. We are the second worst pathetic job market in medical field.

Low-post-count disease strikes again.

 

[purplecolor]

My opinion is that the US Pathology Job Market is terrible; and there are a few nationwide surveys that support my opinion. One is an ASCP Resident Survey from 1996 available on the Internet at:

http://ascp.ais.net/member/rps/surveys/surwi96.asp

An important quote from that article: "Almost half (49%) had received no job offer, 30% one offer, 13% two offers, and 4% three offers."

Another article about residents from all medical specialties was published in JAMA (JAMA, 275(9):708-12 1996 Mar 6). To quote from this article: "Of those seeking employment, the percentage who did not find a full-time position in their specialty or subspecialty ranged between none in urology to 10.8% in pathology."

These articles suggest that pathologists graduating from training in the US stand a 10.8% chance of being unemployed and a 49% chance of being underemployed and going from Fellowship to Fellowship while searching for an attending level position.

The experience of the people who graduated from Residency at about the same time I did seems to confirm that the job market is terrible.

Does anyone know of any additional information available on the Pathology job market?

Subject: Pathology Job Market
In my opinion pathologists will be in surplus relative to the job supply for at least the next 10 years. Anyone who begins training in Pathology now stands maybe a 50% chance of never finding work in their chosen field.

I agree you that there may be more work in Anatomic Pathology as the US population increases and ages. However, that will not be enough to offset the losses of jobs that are occuring as a result of laboratory and hospital mergers and acquisitions of practice groups, and reassignment of workload to non-MD technical and administrative staff.

Here are some estimates I have of the numbers involved:

Let's say that the US population is about 270,000,000 (latest census estimate). If there are roughly 6,000 surgical specimens per 100,000 population per year then there are 16,200,000 surgical specimens examined in the US per year. A Pathologist working full-time doing only Surgical Pathology would average about 4,000 specimans/yr. Therefore the entire Surgical Pathology load of the US could be done by 4050 pathologists.

I'm going to guess that the US Cytopathology load could be done by 2,000 pathologists, Autopsy by 1,000 and Clinical Pathology by 1,000.

There is a need for a minimum of 8,050 pathologists (an educated guess). HOWEVER THERE ARE CURRENTLY ABOUT 14,000 PATHOLOGISTS IN THE USA, AN OVERSUPPLY OF 73%. If every Pathology training program were shut down today this oversupply would last at least 10 years

 

[Parts Unknown]

Welcome back exPCM... we missed you so much 😍

Glad I'm not the only one who saw this. Last exPCM post in July of 2010, this charming individual joins in September. Perhaps August was a good month for a cruise.

I will say I am somewhat disappointed with the "new" material. Seriously, you can't even bother to know the US population is over 310 million? We just had a census, fer chrissake. And 6,000 surgicals per 100,000 population? Says who? The rate in my area is at least double that.

 

[gbwillner]

There is a need for a minimum of 8,050 pathologists (an educated guess). HOWEVER THERE ARE CURRENTLY ABOUT 14,000 PATHOLOGISTS IN THE USA, AN OVERSUPPLY OF 73%. If every Pathology training program were shut down today this oversupply would last at least 10 years

... So what you are saying is that 73% of graduated pathologists can't find work? Or that people only work part-time so that everyone works? How come I don't see a 50% path unemployment rate?? I guess it must be because of Obamacare's secret Pathologist Euthanasia project. Namely, if you can't find a job within 3 months of graduation, they put you down, so that new recruits continue to pour in to the field at ridiculous numbers, giving hospitals free slave-labor for eons to come.
Is that right?

 

[pathstudent]

When you quote articles in 2011 that were written in 96 that say the sky is falling, chances are that article is wrong. 15 years later the job market is fine. If you can't figure out how to get a job then go do something else.