How common is it to pull in 400k/year?

[Lothric]

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Hey,

How common is it to pull in 400k/year as a year 1 attending within onc/heme in places such as California while working a maximum of 50 hours a week?

 

[premedUVA]

About as common as it is to ride a unicorn over a rainbow and meet Bigfoot at the pot of gold.

Even in the most lucrative physician owned PP, you're not going to be making that salary as a year 1. Especially not in the most desired state in the union.

 

[Lothric]

About as common as it is to ride a unicorn over a rainbow and meet Bigfoot at the pot of gold.

Even in the most lucrative physician owned PP, you're not going to be making that salary as a year 1. Especially not in the most desired state in the union.

Ugh, yeah sure let the 24 year old kids pull in 1,5 million dollars a MONTH playing 20-25 hours of video games per week in Twitch get that salary in an instant. The doc on the other hand might get his pity 400k dollars a YEAR after 5 years of work when he's in his 45s. His 300k dollar debt might be down to 250k at that point too.

So one can not expect an annual salary of 400k at all at year 1?

 

[notcool]

Hey,

How common is it to pull in 400k/year as a year 1 attending within onc/heme in places such as California while working a maximum of 50 hours a week?

Ugh, yeah sure let the 24 year old kids pull in 1,5 million dollars a MONTH playing 20-25 hours of video games per week in Twitch get that salary in an instant. The doc on the other hand might get his pity 400k dollars a YEAR after 5 years of work when he's in his 45s. His 300k dollar debt might be down to 250k at that point too.

So one can not expect an annual salary of 400k at all at year 1?

It's not common your first year when you're building your practice, not common in the Bay Area or Southern California or NE (e.g. NYC, Boston), and not common working less than 50 hours per week!

But if you are several years into your practice, if you are in a mid-sized city in the Midwest or South, and/or if you are working more than 50 hours per week (seeing tons of patients per day), then it's possible to make $400k/year in hem/onc (and many other specialties too).

 

[gutonc]

Ugh, yeah sure let the 24 year old kids pull in 1,5 million dollars a MONTH playing 20-25 hours of video games per week in Twitch get that salary in an instant. The doc on the other hand might get his pity 400k dollars a YEAR after 5 years of work when he's in his 45s. His 300k dollar debt might be down to 250k at that point too.

So one can not expect an annual salary of 400k at all at year 1?

Sure. Not in SoCal or the Bay Area of course, or pretty much anywhere that you might like to live.

Choose your location, or choose your compensation.

 

[Lothric]

Sure. Not in SoCal or the Bay Area of course, or pretty much anywhere that you might like to live.

Choose your location, or choose your compensation.

What if I do the former? Can my salary reach 400k a year after some years in practise? Some being 2-3?

 

[visari]

East coast, west coast, major cities ... not going to happen in 1st year or maybe ever
Medium size citiy in the south/midwest ... I would say that's about average/slightly above average for PP to start with in 1st year
Middle of nowhere (50K town in Montana or the Dakotas ...etc) ...400K is average/below average

A lot of factors play in like type of practice and business model ...etc

 

[visari]

It's true when they say that a a job that you love, in a location that you love paying you the money that you love is a unicorn job. It just doesn't exist so don't bother looking

 

[gutonc]

What if I do the former? Can my salary reach 400k a year after some years in practise? Some being 2-3?

Maybe. Maybe not.

 

[notcool]

Here is what I have heard as a general rule of thumb for these kinds of questions. You can pick at most two, not three: great money, great lifestyle, great location.

 

[TheBigCat]

In my experience (east coast) you don't have to go too far from the major cities to begin seeing salaries approaching that amount. Granted, these are not the nicest places to live/work, but a 1-2 hour drive to the coast isn't bad.

 

[PlutoBoy]

Maybe. Maybe not.

Profound.

 

[CatFactorial]

Ugh, yeah sure let the 24 year old kids pull in 1,5 million dollars a MONTH playing 20-25 hours of video games per week in Twitch get that salary in an instant. The doc on the other hand might get his pity 400k dollars a YEAR after 5 years of work when he's in his 45s. His 300k dollar debt might be down to 250k at that point too.

So one can not expect an annual salary of 400k at all at year 1?

Those kids made the insanely risky bet to base their livelihood on playing video games. With big risk comes big rewards/failure, so they definitely earned their cheddar. The doc who takes the safe route should be happy with his also extremely high pay, so not sure what your issue is.

Also, why so fixated on 400K? Seems arbitrary.

 

[nlax30]

Those kids made the insanely risky bet to base their livelihood on playing video games. With big risk comes big rewards/failure, so they definitely earned their cheddar. The doc who takes the safe route should be happy with his also extremely high pay, so not sure what your issue is.

Also, why so fixated on 400K? Seems arbitrary.

I wouldn’t say the doc takes the “safe” route. Considering the time, money, mental commitment with ongoing issue with physician burn out/mental well being issues and unknown future landscape of medicine i certainly wouldn’t call it safe.

And while there are some young folks on twitch/you tube that put serious time and effort into making a production worth what they get paid, i would imagine that the a lot sort of stumbled into the success and I’m not sure I’d consider it well earned if they just decided to turn on a camera and post what they were already doing. Lucky yea.

 

[bronx43]

I wouldn’t say the doc takes the “safe” route. Considering the time, money, mental commitment with ongoing issue with physician burn out/mental well being issues and unknown future landscape of medicine i certainly wouldn’t call it safe.

And while there are some young folks on twitch/you tube that put serious time and effort into making a production worth what they get paid, i would imagine that the a lot sort of stumbled into the success and I’m not sure I’d consider it well earned if they just decided to turn on a camera and post what they were already doing. Lucky yea.

Lol you serious, bruh? Name a "safer" route than medicine in the Western world. Business? Law? Entrepreneurship? Engineering? Academia? None of those compare to medicine in terms of the stability of a six figure salary.

Time, money, and commitment is the price we pay in order to achieve that. Sure, no one knows what will happen to reimbursements in the future, but that's not something that is unique to medicine. In fact, even in this uncertain milieu, medicine is still far more insulated than most other industries. Should any financial cataclysm happen, other industries would get crushed way before the medical industry. In 2008, my banking buddies got destroyed. What happened to doctors? Nothing.
Any law change, or small changes in technology can wipe out entire businesses or industries, but we're a long way from that in medicine. Look at traders that ran the Wallstreet floors in the 80s-90s. They're unemployed now as algos are the only game in town. Look at hedge fund managers. They can't keep their funds afloat as there's no yield in the market anymore. Lawyers can barely find jobs given their oversupply.

Many things suck about medicine, but anyone that wants to complain that this isn't the safest of any profession out there is clueless.

 

[Wildcats9]

Medicine is a very safe route and im not sure what they fascination with a specific number is. There is a lot more that goes into a job except the base salary. Things like bonuses, partnership, work schedule etc I just signed a job contract and I could've gotten a larger base salary at another practice (at you magic 400k number) but I took a different job for less of a base salary, but a much more friendly work schedule, better bonus schedule and partnership track.

 

[msmith83]

is the MGMA data not accurate on this? Seems a touch off of the responses here. Median salary is 440K with 350 in bottom 25%. 400k doesn't seem like a far off number. Having said that, I am still in residency and have no idea what the actual numbers are.

 

[siliso]

You’ve got an abnormal amount of resentment for these tech bros and their tech bux. Maybe you could get out of California so you don’t have to see or think about them anymore. Or retire from medicine to become a full time revolutionary instead.

 

[gutonc]

is the MGMA data not accurate on this? Seems a touch off of the responses here. Median salary is 440K with 350 in bottom 25%. 400k doesn't seem like a far off number. Having said that, I am still in residency and have no idea what the actual numbers are.

The last (aka...only) time I ever saw MGMA data was a few years ago and it was skewed toward PP and >5 years in practice which will skew the data. OP is asking about year 1.

Also keep in mind that some first year "salaries" can be inflated by signing/relo bonuses.