Okay I don't comment much here, but I read and follow every thread. Here is my problem. I am in a fellowship this year and I will be looking to start a job next summer. I really do not want to do another fellowship. I have no idea even where to start in the job search. Should I be calling hospitals and groups begging for a job? Should I be applying to every job on the websites and hoping someone will chose me? In our area everyone is very secretive. I cannot get a straight answer from anyone on how long it took them to find a job, what kind of salary is competative, how and when they started their job search, etc. I am from a "lower tier" residency program (as I see them refered to often here) I have decent scores and chose this program based on location. I had many offers from "top-tier" programs, so I am not a bottom of the barrel physician. I just wish I could get some real answers so I could start my search with knowledge and not so much fear and anxiety. thanks all for listening.
Information for medical students considering pathology as a career
- Thread starter BU Pathology
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2006
- Messages
- 642
- Reaction score
- 47
Some of the information you are looking for may be found in the attached slides. These data are pretty recent and cover many of the issues that you raise.
You should also contact your former program director, current fellowship director and any other person who may become aware of an opening in pathology. You should also provide them with an update copy of your CV, electonically, so that they can immediately pass this along to any prospective employer. In my experience, most pathologists obtain their positions through word-of-mouth and more specifically they call the program directors and find out who is available and who is good. Good typically means both good as a diagnostic pathologist and good as co-operative, hard working colleague.
Good luck with your search.
Daniel Remick, M.D.
Chair and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2003
- Messages
- 2,962
- Reaction score
- 79
true to some extent but pathology does have additional weaknesses. Family practice groups don't hire a gi doc to do nothing but endoscopy and pay them 25 cents on the dollar for each procedure. A group of internists do not hire a urologist do to nothing but biopsy prostates and pay them 12 cents on the dollar.
I have been reading the radiology literature and their academic leaders talk about the problems of commoditization of the field and one article I read even mentioned pathology and referred to it's diminished status due to commoditization. Part of the problem might be that we want all AP pathology to be uniform like a CBC. It makes no difference where you have your blood drawn for lab tests, and we seem to be striving for that with AP too (I.e CAP cancer case checklists). Uniformity might be best for the patient but it might not be best for pathologists in the long run. It makes us into interchangeable parts.
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2011
- Messages
- 263
- Reaction score
- 41
In my city there are two main pathology groups.
The one group covers a hospital network with one boss who hires several pathologists and fires them about every two to three years. Some are good and some are not so good. He has burned through 10-12 pathologists that I know of. Every pathologist that I have met thinks life is great there and they love the job until their contract is not renewed all of a sudden. Each new pathologist has no idea that there is a burn and churn plan and thinks that they were hired because "the hospital system is growing." Happy employed pathologists until the burn. 100% failure rate here.
The second group has not offered partnership to any of newer pathologists for at least the last ten years. The last few that were full time have been demoted to part time because the work is drying up. This is actually not a "bad" group but there is just less and less work.
Why less work? Because absolutely every dermatologist, oncologist, urologist, and gastroenterologist in town is involved in their own pod lab. They hire part time pathologists for pennies on the dollar. These positions offer zero security for a long term position.
From what I hear, this situation is more or less the same everywhere. Am I seeing a phenomenon that only exists in my part of the country? Or is this the same everywhere?
The one group covers a hospital network with one boss who hires several pathologists and fires them about every two to three years. Some are good and some are not so good. He has burned through 10-12 pathologists that I know of. Every pathologist that I have met thinks life is great there and they love the job until their contract is not renewed all of a sudden. Each new pathologist has no idea that there is a burn and churn plan and thinks that they were hired because "the hospital system is growing." Happy employed pathologists until the burn. 100% failure rate here.
The second group has not offered partnership to any of newer pathologists for at least the last ten years. The last few that were full time have been demoted to part time because the work is drying up. This is actually not a "bad" group but there is just less and less work.
Why less work? Because absolutely every dermatologist, oncologist, urologist, and gastroenterologist in town is involved in their own pod lab. They hire part time pathologists for pennies on the dollar. These positions offer zero security for a long term position.
From what I hear, this situation is more or less the same everywhere. Am I seeing a phenomenon that only exists in my part of the country? Or is this the same everywhere?
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2000
- Messages
- 843
- Reaction score
- 401
To drgirlNO1
I started looking for a job after my first week of starting fellowship. I posted my CV on multiple job sites, including CAP and ASCP job boards. I hustled and networked at the annual meetings and put my CV out on the job boards even before I started fellowship. I checked the CAP, ASCP, and pathologyoutlines.com postings every day. I wrote cover letters and had a spiffy CV to send out to those I was interested in. I sent out feelers to prior and current faculty and staff as well as alumni. Things started moving for me regarding interviews in the fall (from places advertised and places not advertised but which I heard from during informal networking at conferences or through faculty or recruiters), and for my cofellows in the winter to late spring. In the past year I've heard that the market was tight, in that there were jobs available but not really "good" jobs (don't know what that means exactly), and that offers were being taken late (about June the latest). The few people I know of who didn't get jobs didn't apply broadly or had an offer fall through the last minute and would rather do another fellowship than scramble for another position.
My advice is that you have to market yourself. You have to hustle and start the process as soon as you decide what you want to do. I built relationships over the years which helped, but in the end it was my effort and determination that got me the job. Nothing will come to you on a silver platter.
Good luck with your search.
I started looking for a job after my first week of starting fellowship. I posted my CV on multiple job sites, including CAP and ASCP job boards. I hustled and networked at the annual meetings and put my CV out on the job boards even before I started fellowship. I checked the CAP, ASCP, and pathologyoutlines.com postings every day. I wrote cover letters and had a spiffy CV to send out to those I was interested in. I sent out feelers to prior and current faculty and staff as well as alumni. Things started moving for me regarding interviews in the fall (from places advertised and places not advertised but which I heard from during informal networking at conferences or through faculty or recruiters), and for my cofellows in the winter to late spring. In the past year I've heard that the market was tight, in that there were jobs available but not really "good" jobs (don't know what that means exactly), and that offers were being taken late (about June the latest). The few people I know of who didn't get jobs didn't apply broadly or had an offer fall through the last minute and would rather do another fellowship than scramble for another position.
My advice is that you have to market yourself. You have to hustle and start the process as soon as you decide what you want to do. I built relationships over the years which helped, but in the end it was my effort and determination that got me the job. Nothing will come to you on a silver platter.
Good luck with your search.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2010
- Messages
- 2,130
- Reaction score
- 1,032
What you are seeing is how it is in most parts of the country. Gonna continue to get worse, especially as disruptive technologies start to come along. I mean things suck now, imagine when the number of biopsies is greatly reduced by technology. Combine that with less smokers and health care rationing and the future is bleak.
Pathology is the only speciality where you compete against EVERY other practicing pathologist in the country. Specimens can be sent anywhere. Something to think about if you are considering pathology.
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2003
- Messages
- 2,962
- Reaction score
- 79
Radiology is Worse. A friend of mine whose group is in the interior west was offered a contract from a hospital in Hawaii. He said there are two hospitals on this particular island (not sure which island) and the Cleveland Clinic's radiology department has the contract for the other hospital on the island. The field of radiology is so commoditized that these hospitals in Hawaii are contracting with radiologists thousands of miles away. On-site radiology is not considered valuable.
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2011
- Messages
- 163
- Reaction score
- 111
That presentation that BU Pathology posted is encouraging. It's pretty much the only actual data I have seen posted here. Everything else is anecdote and opinion.
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2000
- Messages
- 843
- Reaction score
- 401
Another "anecdote"...a colleague of mine told me that his group posted a job recently for a pathologist, and had approx 40ish replies. The vast majority (greater than 90%) were from candidates who had a job currently but were looking for other opportunities. The rest were current fellows. There were no unemployed pathologists who applied.
Take it as another drop in the bucket of opinion....
Take it as another drop in the bucket of opinion....
You are a living proof of how bad job market is.
You are MGH-trained, dermpath-boarded pathologist, right?
You are cream of the crop, and EVEN YOU had to hustle to get a job.
Equivalent graduates from other specialties are flooded with offers.
Take off your rose-tinted glasses.
BU Pathology has a vested interest.
A survey is not 'data'.
Job offers/graduate# ratio is actual data. Get your own.
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2000
- Messages
- 843
- Reaction score
- 401
I am a motivated individual and hustled because I was geographically restricted from the get-go and would have hustled even if I were not a pathologist or even if I weren't in medicine. I know plenty of people who are not in medicine and who used the same strategy. I don't consider my strategy a sign of a bad market. I consider it a great strategy to get a job. Period. And people who didn't use my strategy did get a job, but a later time. My advice is..if you worked hard to get into medical school, worked hard to get into residency, and worked hard to get a fellowship, then why wouldn't you work hard to get a job as well????
And, I know of other individuals in other specialties from top programs who were NOT "flooded with offers." I don't want to start a "she said, he said" game, but unfortunately that's what this is evolving into...
In medicine there's evidence based medicine and anectodal evidence which is used to make clinical decisions. That's what this thread about the job market is becoming...evidence = surveys, and anecdotes = opinions/single person experience.
Similar opinion. Our group was looking for a new pathologist in the past year. After the process of asking around to colleagues failed to produce anyone who wanted to change jobs (and this is a good job) we advertised. As said above, no unemployed pathologists applied. There were a lot of current fellows, despite the fact that the ad specifically asked for someone with at least some practice experience (this particular job would require administrative responsibilities from day 1 so it was a bit different). Of those current fellows, it seemed to me like 75% were foreign grads, most of whom were MSKCC fellows. Someone in our group called a few of the most promising ones, it was amazing how many either misrepresented themselves in their CV or couldn't communicate much beyond their name.
There were numerous people who were 1-3 years out of training, from what I could tell they were in mediocre jobs.
This "unemployed pathologist" thing that keeps getting posted here seems to me quite overblown. The only pathologists I know who are truly unemployed have something that severely weakens their application. Drug addiction. Extremely poor (EXTREMELY POOR) interpersonal skills. The fact that they have been fired from 3 jobs in 3 years for poor diagnostic skills.
There is a disconnect. The job market is poor relative to other specialties but it isn't like being a new lawyer or MBA. In my opinion, the real problem is the "underemployed" pathologist, who is at a job that is not ideal and perhaps not commensurate with their abilities or training. Or is in a location they don't like. In other words, someone who would move in a heartbeat if a better job opened up. There are a lot of these people out there.
There are three problems:
1) Fewer good jobs available
2) Quite a few poor pathologists out there.
3) Pathology is a smaller field. Job openings are not always happening in each city.
Some posit that these first two are linked but I do not think that is so clear.
This forum is interesting. The people screaming the loudest about "data" are the ones who don't have any data at all. Sure, they have anecdotes, but a lot of them seem to be Ferris Bueller anecdotes. I know this guy who heard from this girl who's going with a guy who has a cousin who couldn't find a job. Or they say they have data but what their data really consists of is repackaged survey data that was previously used to support an opposite opinion.
Or they are tea party anecdotes - slamming your fist on the virtual table to convince people that your opinion must be the correct one. The uncompromising opinion. That was clear above, when nilf responded to caffeine girl's post about her experience by dismissing it because she is too well trained. Here's a tip: When you dismiss certain anecdotes because they "aren't relevant" but you hype up others as proof, your argument just might need a little bit of refinement.
Call bunch of recruiter. Get an average number of pathology jobs per recruiter. Divide the number by the # of graduating residents.
Rinse, lather and repeat for other specialties.
Compare the numbers.
This is the most objective way to measure the quality of job market. If you have a better idea, share it.
I'm done with this thread.
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2003
- Messages
- 3,124
- Reaction score
- 130
very nice post, lipomas. thank you.
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2000
- Messages
- 843
- Reaction score
- 401
Just wanted to make an anectodal comment regarding recruiters and pathology. Most pathology jobs in private practice that I have seen do not use national recruitment companies. This is because as a field we are smaller in number compared to for example internal medicine and primary care subspecialties.
The recruiters who contacted me during my search were working with larger/national commercial laboratories, or with larger health networks (ie. Kaiser).
Many private practices are smaller, hospital based and hire based on word of mouth or as in the case illustrated by lipomas and my colleague, by national ads. I got my current position by replying to a posting on pathologyoutlines. This was the first time the practice looked nationally, as they couldn't find a suitable candidate locally by word of mouth.
I think that CAP has a practice directory of their members, so I suggest taking a look at that to get a idea of the practice landscape.
As for academic jobs, those I think have to be posted nationally prior to hiring (whether they have an internal candidate or not..?)
The recruiters who contacted me during my search were working with larger/national commercial laboratories, or with larger health networks (ie. Kaiser).
Many private practices are smaller, hospital based and hire based on word of mouth or as in the case illustrated by lipomas and my colleague, by national ads. I got my current position by replying to a posting on pathologyoutlines. This was the first time the practice looked nationally, as they couldn't find a suitable candidate locally by word of mouth.
I think that CAP has a practice directory of their members, so I suggest taking a look at that to get a idea of the practice landscape.
As for academic jobs, those I think have to be posted nationally prior to hiring (whether they have an internal candidate or not..?)
Why don't you take off your ****-tinted glasses? You're not posting any data at all. You seem to want others to do your work for you.
As a matter of fact, a survey is one means of collecting data. It might not be the most important or reflective data, but it is data. What is NOT data is when you say "You have a vested interest" or "your data is bad data" or "your experience is not relevant."
"Job offers/graduate#" ratio would be somewhat helpful but why would that be so much more helpful than anything else? Just because you think it will confirm your (also biased) opinion? I had two job offers when I finished, but I stopped my search when I found my job and didn't feel the need to look any more. I could have kept looking at gotten 5 more offers I suppose.
The best data would be a comprehensive survey (yes, a survey!) of ALL graduates and practicing pathologists to get a handle on their job satisfaction, starting and ultimate salary, practice characteristics, and job offers.
I wish you were done with this forum. You have nothing to add other than fist pounding. Why don't you call the recruiter since you are so convinced this will help?
And since when is a recruiter the best method? As I said above, we had some difficulty in finding an appropriate candidate for our position. But we didn't contact a recruiter at all. Does this mean we didn't have a position to offer?
FYI when I was looking for jobs I interviewed at three places and talked via phone to two others. None of them were advertised positions but all had an opening. Two were people who called me directly or called an attending of mine looking for a good candidate. Another was a pathologist I vaguely knew and I contacted him to ask. One other was a friend of a relative I called. The other was a pathologist I had met somewhere but didn't know personally. You can take this as more evidence of a weak job market, yes, but these are five positions that would not exist in your ultimate data source. This is how the real world works. Maybe in fantasy land where you live everyone should be falling all over themselves at your door to offer you random positions, but that only works in pro sports. You actually have to put in some effort sometimes to get what you want. And believe it or not, this is also true for other specialties! I know some radiologists who had similar experiences - got jobs that weren't advertised widely.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2007
- Messages
- 52
- Reaction score
- 0
decided on pathology!
i love it no matter what u guys say about job market - i hope it weeds out salary-seekers out of the field. only slightly worried, but betting on the fact that job market troubles are lingering effect of the 5yr->4yr residency change + bad economy.
hopefully by the time i graduate, i'll get one solid job offer. im geographically flexible too. hope to see some of you attendings around in my interview season.
(early introduction is that i'm from NJMS)
i love it no matter what u guys say about job market - i hope it weeds out salary-seekers out of the field. only slightly worried, but betting on the fact that job market troubles are lingering effect of the 5yr->4yr residency change + bad economy.
hopefully by the time i graduate, i'll get one solid job offer. im geographically flexible too. hope to see some of you attendings around in my interview season.
(early introduction is that i'm from NJMS)
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2003
- Messages
- 28,059
- Reaction score
- 438
We didn't have any contact with a recruiter either - our group actually hired several paths and one PA in the past 1-2 years. When I looked for jobs I didn't go through recruiters - most of my contacts were personal contacts. I contacted one job ad I saw which I never ended up pursuing much further since I got my current job before it went anywhere. I was randomly contacted by a recruiter via a friend of mine, who was looking on behalf of some random small hospital in New Hampshire, but that was the extent of my recruiter involvement.
I think what was said above is right, some larger corporations tend to be the ones who would use recruiters. I think pod labs might also. A large number of (private) jobs are filled through informal methods.
And yes, a survey does provide data. It might not be the best data, and it might be subjective, but it is data. There is an awful lot of angry rhetoric on here without much real data to back it up. Unfortunately it's information that's really hard to obtain for some reason. It seems to me that national organizations keep attempting surveys but due to whatever factor they can't end up sampling that big of a population. Doctors don't really answer surveys once they are in practice. As an example, where I work we are always getting contacted about filling out surveys for the hospital/health system regarding physician relations, patient safety, etc. The current iteration has been sent by email or snail mail about 5 times in two months and the response rate is still about 20%.
I would think the boards would be a helpful resource to utilize for this type of thing. It is a captive audience. While many people take the boards before they serously enter the job market, there are recertification steps now. Add a couple of questions "for research purposes." At least people will be forced to decline to answer.
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2001
- Messages
- 312
- Reaction score
- 0
Would agree with the last few posters. Problem is not unemployed pathologists, but underemployed pathologists. My impression is that while many people are overall ok with their jobs, there are aspects about it that they would definitely change and feel disappointed by- sometimes it's pay, sometimes location, and sometimes it's work colleagues. There probably are career fields where you get to be paid what you like, work with great people, and live in your preferred location, but this is just not the case for most of us in pathology. It's the downside of this gig.
I suspect you wouldn't find much difference in talking to a lot of specialties. Many physicians seem to be overworked, and have to deal with stuff they don't want to like too much call or too much inpatient stuff. Or their colleagues suck. Maybe derm is the exception since so many have offices with one or two practitioners. Or ophthalmologists who can just refuse to take call. I think there probably is a difference in the "live where you want to live" part. Seems more uncommon to see other specialties changing states for a better job. But it still happens. One of our urologists and an OB are new and they have no connection to the area. But heck, most of the docs at my hospital work longer hours than me, I think. And they don't really get paid more.
But yeah, it totally sucks to work with ****ty colleagues. I don't really know how people deal with it. I am lucky I guess, the vast majority of my colleagues are nice and ethical. We have one semi-****ty individual who shirks work and dumps it on others, but he/she isn't that bad. If I had to deal in my group with one of those hyper-arrogant douchebags who makes life miserable for everyone I am not sure what I would do.
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2011
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 0
You have to divide the main factors affecting the pathology job market into three classfications.
1. Factors that affect all sectors of employment (ie the state of the whole US economy)
2. Factors that are standard to all medical professions in general (insurance, Medicare).
3. Factors that are unique to pathology (pod labs, oversupply, etc).
All of these factors work in tandem--often overlapping and complementary--and at best we can try to evaluate instantaneous snapshots of these factors in action, and then try to extrapolate these to trends. This is very difficult to do in my opinion without the flow of misinformation, incomplete data, and overreliance on speculation.
What's even more difficult though is how to take such an academic exercise and be able to apply it to an individual's personal and professional goals in an objective and rational way.
Every profession in the world has its own share of horror stories and success stories, that's something you will have to deal with no matter what you do. So if you are scared of one field, you have to be scared of them all.
There's no way to predict the future. If anything, hopefully this scares away the barely interested and will leave only a small hardcore devoted group. Pathology has always been a small field, and it has to be recognized as such. Open enough to all those who want to do it, but not big enough for every half-wit.
1. Factors that affect all sectors of employment (ie the state of the whole US economy)
2. Factors that are standard to all medical professions in general (insurance, Medicare).
3. Factors that are unique to pathology (pod labs, oversupply, etc).
All of these factors work in tandem--often overlapping and complementary--and at best we can try to evaluate instantaneous snapshots of these factors in action, and then try to extrapolate these to trends. This is very difficult to do in my opinion without the flow of misinformation, incomplete data, and overreliance on speculation.
What's even more difficult though is how to take such an academic exercise and be able to apply it to an individual's personal and professional goals in an objective and rational way.
Every profession in the world has its own share of horror stories and success stories, that's something you will have to deal with no matter what you do. So if you are scared of one field, you have to be scared of them all.
There's no way to predict the future. If anything, hopefully this scares away the barely interested and will leave only a small hardcore devoted group. Pathology has always been a small field, and it has to be recognized as such. Open enough to all those who want to do it, but not big enough for every half-wit.
Thank you so much for your reply. It give me an idea of what to do and where to get started. Again thank you.
You make an excellent post with several good points.
I agree with the last point you made, however ideally pathology also wants to attract some who are strong intellects and have potential to be good at whatever they do, even if they don't know much about pathology. Like how radiology does now. A lot of people start considering radiology as soon as they get their board scores back and see that 240+ score. Some of them then find out they like it, and end up being major assets to the field.
That doesn't happen as often in pathology and we lose out. Instead, we have a lot of positions which outstrips the current desire among really good candidates, and we end up with lots of weaker candidates. Some of these are IMGs, some are US grads. Where this is an advantage is that the really good IMGs who would be overlooked in other fields simply because they are IMGs can get into path and then excel. But unfortunately that isn't always true, and pathology keeps training lots of people who really, to be honest, aren't that good at it.
So yes it's a small field but not small enough. The problem is that while the number of residency spots outstrips the number of desirable candidates, so does the number of practice positions in the country. So marginal people keep graduating and keep getting jobs and weaken the field. But then again, a lot of pathology jobs have always been kind of marginal jobs that wouldn't attract strong candidates anyway. So who knows where that leaves us.
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2008
- Messages
- 616
- Reaction score
- 2
Could you elaborate on this a little?
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2007
- Messages
- 1,369
- Reaction score
- 23
One can't really afford a sense of entitlement for having been successful in life up until time to be handed a job. Any job, in any market.
There have always been a lot of marginal pathology jobs, at least what I would consider marginal. I refer to some really small groups (2-3 people) where you make a decent salary but not great. And because you are a small group you are likely afiiliated with a small hospital, which is ripe either for a takeover/merger or to simply fail. A small hospital with one pathologist is not very efficient. The work done there can be handled by another group with very little impact on their work flow.
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2011
- Messages
- 236
- Reaction score
- 1
Assuming you do get a job, I'm wondering what people's experiences are with job security. How frequently do pathologists get laid off, whether it is in academics, private practice, or working for a reference lab? This is assuming that you are a competent pathologist and average or above average compared to others (you're not a major screwup and you're diligent and get along with others well). Have you heard of pathologists getting let go? Is is relatively easy to get another job when that happens?
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2008
- Messages
- 19
- Reaction score
- 0
Radiology is surely another such specialty. Images can be sent anywhere. Much faster in fact.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2010
- Messages
- 2,130
- Reaction score
- 1,032
Radiology is surely another such specialty. Images can be sent anywhere. Much faster in fact.
True. Radiology is vulnerable but it has a long way to go to catch up with what has been going on in pathology. A shortage of Radiologists is the driving force behind most of radiology outsourcing. Pathology outsourcing is driven by inducements to physicians by large commercial labs, managed care contracts and niche labs like Bostwick.
In my small town alone I have lost business to labs in New Jersey, Florida and even freaking Delaware. I am in the midwest. I dont see the radiologists in my area losing business to radiologists in far off states. When you get a job in pathology, you compete against EVERY practicing pathologist in the United States.
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2011
- Messages
- 236
- Reaction score
- 1
sounds like many practices are getting bought out. so working for a reference lab is inevitable for pathologists in the future?
how sad.
if only there were fewer pathologists, maybe things would be different. pathologists would have more the upper hand and not be tempted to take mediocre jobs from mega labs. and mega labs wouldn't have such easy access to pathologists and make a killing off of pathologists as they do now.
i just hope that when I get bought out in the future, I won't be the unlucky one who also gets let go. (yeah i know, someone is going to dismiss me by saying there are plenty of jobs in pathology)
how sad.
if only there were fewer pathologists, maybe things would be different. pathologists would have more the upper hand and not be tempted to take mediocre jobs from mega labs. and mega labs wouldn't have such easy access to pathologists and make a killing off of pathologists as they do now.
i just hope that when I get bought out in the future, I won't be the unlucky one who also gets let go. (yeah i know, someone is going to dismiss me by saying there are plenty of jobs in pathology)
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2010
- Messages
- 2,130
- Reaction score
- 1,032
First you will work for large reference labs, then you will work for in-house labs. Eventually pathologists will barely be needed due to disruptive technology that is on the horizon. Just to give an example, at a recent ACOG meeting, there was a device that is designed to greatly reduce the number of tissue biopsies, pap tests, hpv etc. Game changing technology is coming. People can blow it off all they want to but it will be here sooner than later. I just hope laboratories dont end up like bookstores.
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2011
- Messages
- 61
- Reaction score
- 6
I will always hold pathology in very high regard - and thought this was my path for nearly a year now - but have decided to pursue a specialty where I can open my own practice and take cash-only patients because I cannot trust the future state of healthcare. If you love pathology, however, then go for it, just be sure to consider all factors and be honest with yourself. Good luck!
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2007
- Messages
- 1,654
- Reaction score
- 37
Then I say this board has done it's job. It makes you feel really good inside to see a good altruistic work done. Go forth and maybe one day you will employ some of us as part of your ancillary office staff. Any one of us would count themselves lucky to be employed by an alpha like yourself. We will merely feed our families with the crumbs that fall from your table. Regret not this day my friend.
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2011
- Messages
- 236
- Reaction score
- 1
Are you going to hire your own bill collectors or contract with them? Because you will need them. The ability of patients to delay, contest, or outright refuse to pay their medical bills exceeds that of insurance companies in many cases. The only real exceptions are cosmetic-type fields or "pay in advance" types of arrangements. Good luck with that.
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2011
- Messages
- 61
- Reaction score
- 6
Well thank you. The physicians at my institution have many successful private practices in both solo and group settings in the field I'm pursuing, so patients defaulting on their payments don't appear to be a deal breaker by a long shot. Anyhow, the other part of my decision stems from wanting to care for patients in an integral fashion.
Similar threads
