How hard is it to get into academic anesthesia?
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Arch Guillotti
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Not really.
It’s pretty easy to get an academic job if intent is to just work. Pay is lower. Hours are better.
Academics is not what it was 20-25 years ago. Most Faculty almost guarantee 1 often times 2 non clinical days a week.
these days young attendings end up being worker bees in academics. 99.5% clinical. Maybe 1-2 hour non clinical time every 2 weeks and it’s crap time. Say a 230pm lecture with some med students when you are tired and don’t feel like doing it.
Academics is not what it was 20-25 years ago. Most Faculty almost guarantee 1 often times 2 non clinical days a week.
these days young attendings end up being worker bees in academics. 99.5% clinical. Maybe 1-2 hour non clinical time every 2 weeks and it’s crap time. Say a 230pm lecture with some med students when you are tired and don’t feel like doing it.
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Got a pulse? You are a good candidate for at least 50% of academic institutions. Most can’t hire or retain folks to save their lives.
It depends on what you want. Are you talking about hanging around your own department for a few months or a year after graduation in order to get your feet wet and see what you want to do next? A lot of departments will make room for that. A big X-factor, of course, is that clinical volume (eh hem, revenue) is way down, even at academic centers right now. Trying to get hired to a career academic position, though, is a different beast. No, it's not like in other, more academic, specialties where you have to come in with a K grant, pay for your own time, build a program, and demonstrate potential for scientific independence. But programs generally want someone who comes with something, be it sub-specialty training in something they care about, a burgeoning research program, or some demonstrated leadership abilities. There's a range of academic programs, of course, but at big places, the bar is higher. Right now, they aren't short on labor, so you'd have to have something beyond the ability to hump cases.
First job out of residency can be tough. A lot of it is luck since you need a job in July and the place has to have a need in July. It helps if you can articulate a vision for your career, ie to be the neuro guy, or study sleep apnea, or you want to enroll in the university’s masters of quality program, etc because academic chairs eat that stuff up.
Once you have been out a few years working in academics you can very easily find a new, quality academic job. You’ll have a safety record, lots of cases under your belt, hopefully some meaningful work on your CV, and you don’t have to start in July. If you play your cards right that’s when you can negotiate a good contract with some non clinical time, leadership positions, higher pay, etc.
Once you have been out a few years working in academics you can very easily find a new, quality academic job. You’ll have a safety record, lots of cases under your belt, hopefully some meaningful work on your CV, and you don’t have to start in July. If you play your cards right that’s when you can negotiate a good contract with some non clinical time, leadership positions, higher pay, etc.
This. Is. What. Academics. Has. Become.
It pains me to see all the young attendings (myself included) working their asses off while the old attendings take the easy low risk cases with plenty of protected time off.
It's too easy to get a job. Which is why many academic institutions end up with folks who just want an easy paying job and very little interest in educating residents.
The incentives are perverse. The young attendings take a ton of clinical responsibilities, have almost zero protected time, but are also expected to educate, lecture and teach residents. At my institution, we are also expected to help provide lunch breaks and other breaks. When you do urology cases and see 20+ patients, at the end of the day it is damned exhausting.
Right, and then the old cats will enjoy two CA2 rooms while not teaching because "they've done their due".
It's also quite puzzling to me how simply being a physician seems to impart some magical educational ability on someone.
It’s easy to get an academic job, it’s harder to get a good job. A lot of it comes down to timing. We have hired as few as one and as many as 6 new faculty in a given year and we’re pretty incestuous. We’re always expanding, maybe there’s a retirement or one or two people move on for greener pastures/leadership jobs elsewhere.
As for academic time, nobody here has less than 10% academic/admin time in the clinical track and many in the research track have 40–50%. Though your productivity is monitored and it’s up or out.
It’s not hard to ask around, get the real deal and figure out which jobs are good, bad or great.
Some academic jobs are very academic focused and others are more like a hospital employed group driven by productivity and money. Like everything, if you’re flexible and mobile, you can find what you want.
