Hemepath fellow cannot find a job.

[CrazyEBV]

New member here. I like hemepath. I have mixed feelings about this thread. I recently saw The Dark Report webinar by Richard Cornell, President, Santé Consulting, LLC, a national physician recruitment company. His data shows that Hemepath is the most popular fellowship but only 6% of the jobs out there are heme oriented. On the contrary, Surgpath fellowship is not popular at all, however, 35% of jobs are SP oriented. Of course, we know that one doesn't need an SP fellowship to sign out SP cases. Just my 2 cents.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Path_to_Endo]

You are correct that experience will help. However, it speaks volumes about pathology training that this is true. Why can you practice general internal medicine after 3 years and general surgery after 5 years, not needing "real world" experience to be considered for a job? Yet in pathology one needs 5-6 years plus experience to function adequately in practice?

That is a damning indictment of the pathology training system in America and we should be ashamed. Academics will be quick to blame the trainee - after all, there are always jobs for good candidates right? If you are not a good candidate it's not our fault, you didn't work hard enough, etc. But surely training programs should be culpable for taking in an average/median AMG and not being able to turn that person into a competent pathologist in less time than a surgeon can be trained. Lets be honest - pathology just isn't harder than other specialties, and it doesn't take more years to reach baseline competency.

Anyone heading for the exits/life rafts on this sinking ship?

 

[path24]

The shortage is here and now!!!! CAP is promoting histotech jobs for pathologists. That has opened up an entire new area of medicine for pathologists. Go to the CAP career center and click on PATHOLOGIST positions. I am sure there are tons of histotech positions listed elsewhere also. With histotech positions the shortage is now!!!

The pathology job market is such a complete joke....its just sad and pathetic.

 

[bioguy]

The shortage is here and now!!!! CAP is promoting histotech jobs for pathologists. That has opened up an entire new area of medicine for pathologists. Go to the CAP career center and click on PATHOLOGIST positions. I am sure there are tons of histotech positions listed elsewhere also. With histotech positions the shortage is now!!!

The pathology job market is such a complete joke....its just sad and pathetic.

I should stop reading posts on this forum and just focus on reading Pathology and hope for the best. It is depressing. I'll just close my eyes and imagine a rosy world out there.

 

[Tiki]

Here is my experience, for what it's worth:

I am a US grad, residency at what most would call a top ten program, AP/CP certified in August of last year, currently doing a surg path fellowship.

Applied to: over a hundred places, mixed academic and private, mostly from advertised sites (cap, ASCP, path outlines, indeed.com, careermd)

Interviews: 3 in person (all academic), 2 phone (private), cancelled one in person private and one academic after I accepted my offer.

Job: Academic, east coast, asst. professor, starting salary is in 170,000's.

Overall, I am thrilled with how this ended, as I am in my dream location at a well respected institution doing sub specialty sign out. Things really worked out for the best.

That being said, it is rough out there, especially if you don't have connections. The job I accepted, I heard about through word of mouth, it was not recently posted. The market did open up to me at the end, where I had additional private groups calling me to see if I was interested, so if you haven't received an offer by May 1st, it's still possible to find a good job (though you may have ulcers).

One last word of advice: don't trust anyone at their word until you sign a contract. Part of the reason I was so behind in the search is that I received a verbal offer in January and trusted those folks and stopped looking for a job. Stupidly, I stopped looking for a few weeks, then found out they changed their mind, and went with someone with subspecialty experience.

Moral of the story: don't trust anyone, no matter how awesome they are, until you sign something. Keep looking for a job and interviewing.

I lucked out, because that job wasn't the best fit for my skills, and I found an excellent job that I am thrilled about. But the market is not great for applicants, so you can't be a trusting idiot.

 

[mlw03]

Very nice to see that you found a position you're happy with in the end. Can't imagine the stress you've felt over the last few months.

Here is my experience, for what it's worth:

I am a US grad, residency at what most would call a top ten program, AP/CP certified in August of last year, currently doing a surg path fellowship.

Applied to: over a hundred places, mixed academic and private, mostly from advertised sites (cap, ASCP, path outlines, indeed.com, careermd)

Interviews: 3 in person (all academic), 2 phone (private), cancelled one in person private and one academic after I accepted my offer.

Job: Academic, east coast, asst. professor, starting salary is in 170,000's.

Overall, I am thrilled with how this ended, as I am in my dream location at a well respected institution doing sub specialty sign out. Things really worked out for the best.

That being said, it is rough out there, especially if you don't have connections. The job I accepted, I heard about through word of mouth, it was not recently posted. The market did open up to me at the end, where I had additional private groups calling me to see if I was interested, so if you haven't received an offer by May 1st, it's still possible to find a good job (though you may have ulcers).

One last word of advice: don't trust anyone at their word until you sign a contract. Part of the reason I was so behind in the search is that I received a verbal offer in January and trusted those folks and stopped looking for a job. Stupidly, I stopped looking for a few weeks, then found out they changed their mind, and went with someone with subspecialty experience.

Moral of the story: don't trust anyone, no matter how awesome they are, until you sign something. Keep looking for a job and interviewing.

I lucked out, because that job wasn't the best fit for my skills, and I found an excellent job that I am thrilled about. But the market is not great for applicants, so you can't be a trusting idiot.

 

[rollwithit]

Applied to: over a hundred places, mixed academic and private, mostly from advertised sites (cap, ASCP, path outlines, indeed.com, careermd)

Congrats on landing a job you are excited about. That sucks that you were burned by another group in the process.

When you say you applied to over a hundred places, were they advertising for your sub-specialty signout? Getting a handful of interviews out of 100+ sucks (not directed at you, just a general comment). Were you applying to anything, but advertising you were only interested in signing out certain cases? Or were these jobs that met your interests/training qualifications?

Just curious if the low interview rate was because of a mismatch in your desires and theirs or if it really takes that much solicitation before getting an interview. Also, does your count include just submitting an application and waiting for response or did you reach out to these individually (phone, email, etc.) while applying?

 

[Tissue issue]

Congrats on landing a job you are excited about. That sucks that you were burned by another group in the process.

When you say you applied to over a hundred places, were they advertising for your sub-specialty signout? Getting a handful of interviews out of 100+ sucks (not directed at you, just a general comment). Were you applying to anything, but advertising you were only interested in signing out certain cases? Or were these jobs that met your interests/training qualifications?

Just curious if the low interview rate was because of a mismatch in your desires and theirs or if it really takes that much solicitation before getting an interview. Also, does your count include just submitting an application and waiting for response or did you reach out to these individually (phone, email, etc.) while applying?

rollwithit- I have to say the specificity of your questions is quite surprising coming from someone who is not a pathologist (or a physician).

 

[Tiki]

Congrats on landing a job you are excited about. That sucks that you were burned by another group in the process.

When you say you applied to over a hundred places, were they advertising for your sub-specialty signout? Getting a handful of interviews out of 100+ sucks (not directed at you, just a general comment). Were you applying to anything, but advertising you were only interested in signing out certain cases? Or were these jobs that met your interests/training qualifications?

Just curious if the low interview rate was because of a mismatch in your desires and theirs or if it really takes that much solicitation before getting an interview. Also, does your count include just submitting an application and waiting for response or did you reach out to these individually (phone, email, etc.) while applying?

I did apply to some jobs that I pretty much knew i was not going to get. I also applied for some on path outlines that were older and had been listed for some time, so you could probably subtract about twenty from the list. Most of the apps I sent in were via email, in retrospect more personal contact might have helped.

It is not a lie that connections play heavily in landing a job. When I responded to online job ads, I was competing with a lot of folks. At least ten places told me that they had received over a hundred CVs in jut a few days. Whereas the job I took was from word of mouth.

The job market is rough, but I found an excellent job in my dream locale, so everything worked out for the best. I do not envy those coming out, they might want to get some Pepcid.

 

[path24]

A physician coming from a top ten program should be recruited with multiple offers. Am I asking to much (a lot of other areas of medicine have this)? What about all the people not in a top ten program....jobs for them?...if they are lucky.

Stay away from pathology. Top candidates/programs struggle to gain employment.

There is just a massive oversupply and training of pathologists.

 

[Tissue issue]

I did apply to some jobs that I pretty much knew i was not going to get. I also applied for some on path outlines that were older and had been listed for some time, so you could probably subtract about twenty from the list. Most of the apps I sent in were via email, in retrospect more personal contact might have helped.

It is not a lie that connections play heavily in landing a job. When I responded to online job ads, I was competing with a lot of folks. At least ten places told me that they had received over a hundred CVs in jut a few days. Whereas the job I took was from word of mouth.

The job market is rough, but I found an excellent job in my dream locale, so everything worked out for the best. I do not envy those coming out, they might want to get some Pepcid.

Your honesty is helpful to those still in training (or considering pathology). And FWIW, you get my vote for best avatar.

 

[Tiki]

A physician coming from a top ten program should be recruited with multiple offers. Am I asking to much (a lot of other areas of medicine have this)? What about all the people not in a top ten program....jobs for them?...if they are lucky.

Stay away from pathology. Top candidates/programs struggle to gain employment.

There is just a massive oversupply and training of pathologists.

I agree with you that the market leaves much to be desired, but I don't think folks truly interested in path should stay away.

For all of the stress I have dealt with in the past year, I still found a good job, doing what I love.

Folks just need to be realistic about the hunt. They will most likely have to compromise. And they'll have to work much harder to find a spot than their clinical colleagues.

I agree the market stinks, but I'm still glad I'm a pathologist.

 

[Johnny Sunshine]

Quite frankly there now is no excuse to be jobless. You have been warned about the perils of pathology.

Really? I wasn't warned about the perils of pathology until PGY-2 almost 3 of path residency. Everyone before that painted an extremely pretty picture.

And telling someone to jettison the past few years of their lives, and take on another handful of years, isn't exactly an easy solution.