PhD/PsyD Job offers: how important is a name?

[clinical_psydoc]

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For those of you who work in hospital systems or academic medical centers, how important is “the name” to you?

Given these two situations, which would you choose:
1. Clinical psychologist position with academic appointment commensurate with experience at a well-known and well-respected hospital in a city (population around 500,000) with COL lower than national average. Salary $100,000. Great healthcare benefits, CME funds. Completely unknown what the department dynamics are like because you are unfamiliar with the hospital.

2. Director position within a division of a smaller hospital system in a city of 200,000. COL lower than the other city and you’ll be able to get a better house (important to you because you have a family). Salary $110,000. Similar geographic area (about 3-4 hours from #1). Good (but not great) healthcare benefits. No CME funds. This is where you were a postdoc and practiced as a psychologist for a few years, and know the department has people with whom it is pleasant to work.

The reason for the last sentence is I am concerned I may be biased to go toward the “safer” option. I relocated last year to go somewhere that has a great reputation (similar to that of #1) but I am finding questionable ethics, cliques within the department that impact whether patients are admitted to certain programs, and other concerning things. I am basically concerned if I go to #1, I may run into similar issues. #2 I am familiar with. I would appreciate others’ views or if others had similar experiences.

 

[WisNeuro]

Are you going to be primarily a clinician or researcher? If clinician, name means nothing, just go to whatever mix of pay/satisfaction work.

 

[clinical_psydoc]

Are you going to be primarily a clinician or researcher? If clinician, name means nothing, just go to whatever mix of pay/satisfaction work.

Clinician. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

I agree, I don't think the "name" is especially important for clinicians. I suppose if you plan on going into part- or full-time private practice later, you could say, "yes, I work at/used to work at [insert swanky AMC here]." But even then, your work and relationships are generally going to matter much more than where you've been credentialed in the past.

If the plan is to go into administration, I would think the position (e.g., directorship, co-directorship) would be more important than the name/location of the hospital.

For academia, I'll defer to others, but that's a situation in which name/institution size might matter more.

Since you've already said the role/goal is as a clinician, I'd go with whatever place is the better fit in terms of pay, responsibilities and work load, atmosphere, and extra-work factors like COL, housing, nearby stuff that's fun to do, etc.

 

[summerbabe]

Director position

Is that a career goal? What is the admin/clinical split? Do you have a sense of what this would fully entail? Worklife balance difference between trainee vs clinical staff vs admin?

It helps that you know and like the people but what about whether you’d enjoying these tasks? Or could it take away from your quality of life?

 

[Sanman]

Agreed with the others. I will add this...how career oriented are you? Are you willing to keep relocating to get better jobs and work your way up the ladder of hospital systems? If the answer is yes, it may matter some. If, like most of us, you plan on buying a house, settling down, and staying put for a while it will not matter. The restrictions you put on yourself will matter more than any name reputation down the road (Read: not relocating, only want a decent/short commute, decent work hours, etc). In fact, I find the lesser known systems, areas, and hospitals to be the best. Larger names often trade on reputation and pay less/ expect more. Then again, I chose to go work in a rural area to escape traffic and have a more affordable house further into the suburbs.

 

[singasongofjoy]

Unless you’re more career / achievement driven than average and plan to keep trying to move up in position as others have mentioned, consider quality of life. Personally if I knew I liked the people and the work and workflow at the second place it would be a really easy decision - unless it was in a really not great location geographically for the things that matter to me which would give me pause. But a big name place is more likely to have competitively (rather than collaboratively) minded people looking to move up either internally or externally - which also leads to more turnover. Personally more likely to be the type of culture I want to spend 40+ hours a week in. And also - I work at a fairly big name AMC (where I did my postdoc and had some prior experience before phd program) and the culture within my little microcosm is exactly what I want and keeps me here- is also perhaps the biggest reason I took a leadership role when it opened up to ensure the culture at our particular clinic didn’t change too much. There is a chance nonetheless that the bigger system’s trickle-down annoyances (which are related to perpetual push to add on this, that, and twelve other things because of this hospital or department initiative, do something extra here and there to support some new research / grant or shiny new thing) might eventually drive me on to something else. I can’t help but think that at a smaller/less research-driven AMC (or at a non-AMC hospital) that might not be such a thing in the background. So to me your 2nd option sounds pretty sweet.

 

[PsyDr]

1) I’ve met people who made an entire career out of a post doc with a name

2) the most famous psychologist is different than the richest. Dr. Phil had more money than Zimbardo.

3) About 1/3 of the recent Nobel medicine winners were outsiders

4) ain’t no shame in having a quiet life

 

[msc545]

Pick # 2. Better the devils you know.

 

[smalltownpsych]

One offers experience in a new setting, the other offers adminsitrative experience. That is what I would be looking at more so than reputation. Which is more important to how you see your career direction?

 

[msc545]

You said "the department has people with whom it is pleasant to work" and for me at least that says it all. Our work is hard enough without a hostile environment to contend with.

 

[smalltownpsych]

You said "the department has people with whom it is pleasant to work" and for me at least that says it all. Our work is hard enough without a hostile environment to contend with.

Very valid point and the safe bet, but the safe bet is not always the best bet. I have done well in my career when I have taken the less well worn path. Ultimately, it is a good problem to have two good offers. If the OP can’t come up with a decision, they could always flip a coin. 😛

 

[msc545]

I will admit that growth can occur due to adversity, but there are limits to that. People who are trying to ruin your career and your life promote things other than growth, and that has been known to happen even in "therapeutic" environments which can be uniquely toxic.

 

[clinical_psydoc]

All of this is very helpful. I appreciate everyone’s replies very much!