And how many of those jobs are partnership track private practice positions with stable groups, in a place you’d actually want to live.. Versus low level academic positions or positions with corporate mills? 572 can fall to almost nothing pretty fast when you apply a few basic filters. Also, even if you find something that seems decent, and you are willing to make a long distance move to that place, how many of those groups are lying to you? They can state terms for partnership then move the goalposts or flat out fire you after 3 or 4 years, lose their major hospital contract because the situation is unstable and they hide it from you, etc.. for every one “good” job, there may be 10 or more people in a “bad” job wanting to move up to something decent. For the new people coming out, I bet there is less than 1 good job for every 10 people coming out of training in a given year.. and they’ll have to compete with experienced people in order to get one of those jobs. I’m close to a decade out of training, and have been through a lot of third rate garbage- corporate lab jobs, private jobs with no partnership track, practices where they lose their hospital contract right after you make a long distance move and start working there. Medical students should absolutely stay away from this crap.. do NOT go into this field. Stay away. There may be a rare charmed individual (with nepotism or just blind luck on their side) who can get through this minefield without getting a leg blown off, and they will tout the wonders of pathology while ignoring the carnage around them, but you should, under no circumstances, take this kind of risk with your future after you’ve invested so much. There are also plenty of people on the employer side, some of them MBA types and some older generation pathologists, who will be more than happy to take advantage of you, with some practices being run like Ponzi schemes to bilk their new people in order to prop up partner incomes in the face of declining reimbursements..
Also, I suspect that a lot of people fail to take down or close their posting once it is filled, so 572 is an overestimate for current open positions. It includes postings from 6 months ago that have probably been filled.
THIS is ultimately the truth and matters more than one's personal feelings about the field.
How did changing from multiple jobs affect your prospects with each successive place you went to? I ask because jumping from job-to-job can be a red flag on your CV. Unless a place already knows you or is desperate (which is usually not the case, statistically speaking), they will give you the benefit of the doubt from switching multiple jobs. But most pathology practices get a ton of CV's so, they can be selective and even the slightest aberrancy that raises an eyebrow will cause them to toss your CV in the recycling bin.
Who cares are the fellows entering the job market who have zero contacts and whose faculty and program directors can't or don't help them land a job. Of course it's always a good idea to stay in touch with contacts/friends in the field who can help you down the road and I do advocate that strategy. And, given the job market, I think it favors any jobseeker to use all resources disposable. But, when you're graduating in 6 months and don't know where your paycheck will be coming in beyond that point, waiting for a friend to come along is not a good strategy.
That’s not exactly what the instructions on the website say. The instructions say that employers pay $975 and the post stays up for 6 months or “until filled”. Presumably a poster would have to let them know to take the posting down before the 6 months is up, and I don’t know that many would since there’s no financial benefit- it is $975 whether the job fills in 2 days or 180 days.
Either they are living on a different planet from me or there are some major issues with the jobs they are offering, if they are truly having trouble getting decent applicants.
With those type of credentials, you appear to be a "good candidate". The mantra on here is "good candidates, get good jobs". However, your experience, while not entirely unheard of seems like you've hit just about every stumbling block your career track that you possibly could have. Sometimes, you just have to be lucky. It shouldn't have to be that way when one enters medical school and accomplishes their goals, but it is...
Ohhh no you don't, you knew this was coming and love the drama that comes with our favorite topic...
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I’ve heard that several times on here that employers are having a hard time finding good candidates. Why is that?
I think part of it is perception by employers. They have a bevy of applicants, so they can afford to screen selectively, so anything that seems "off" about a CV is judged as another bad applicant. And, many (not all) of the so-called "good" candidates either get jobs through contacts or land a good job on their 1st or 2nd round of applying post-fellowship, so they are out from the application pool which then mainly consists of the supposedly "bad" applicants firing out/recycling their CVs. Yes, this is a consequence of too many training programs. Limiting the supply would decrease the overall number of job applicants after graduating, because residency programs would then be choosing the most qualified 250 PGY-1's/yr instead of the best ~550 PGY-1's/yr.
Correct. I have been on several private practice interviews and partnership track as a new or recent graduate ranged from 3-5 yrs., average being 3, and 5 was on the highest end. If one has experience, some practices will reduce it to 0-2 yrs., but others won't, ymmv.
Yes now I realize groups can make partnership tracks 5 years because they know they can while they reap money off of junior pathologists. One group I talked to was 5 years in a not so desirable location either!
Another factor is, even though the market is heavily rigged in favor of the employer over employee (supply >>> demand), it still might be possible for an employer to overplay their hand. Many of them know they have all the leverage and can offer a really sh*tty deal and say “take it or leave it”. But they can possibly offer something that is so horrendous that at least some of the decent applicants might walk away. I know one large private group that is pretty blatant about having a two tiered system with haves and have nots, and they offer new people a very low salary with no partnership track and I think 4 weeks of vacation (versus about 10 for partners). After 5 years there, you are still well under 300k total compensation with no equity or anything else. The workload is split evenly (at best) but the money never will be, and you will be working pretty hard pushing a lot of glass to subsidize the partners’ 500k+ salaries, vacation, 20k CME fund, etc. They still expect to get US grads from good programs (like they did back in the day) even though what they are offering now is absolute crap. If they have the slightest trouble recruiting someone for a position or have someone walk away, they think the market just isn’t good enough for them.
I’ve seen much worse. I know one group that has a 9 year track. After 5 years you get 1/5 of a share, and you get an additional 1/5 of a share each additional year. It takes 9 years before you are a full shareholder (assuming they don’t renege, which is a pretty bold assumption).
Really you are going to switch to another specialty because of what you read on here? You will get a job somewhere for transfusion. Wherever that is depends on availability or luck.
My bad. Didn’t know transfusion job market was that bad since I don’t know many who did a fellowship in it. Yeah that sucks.
No one in NE ( I assume NE = New England) is paying a new grad 310 for general sp.
Yeah I don't buy that either. We're a New England private group that pays very well w/ only partnership track jobs , and we don't start new grads anywhere near $310K. Our management company gives us numbers of comparable groups when we're in the hiring process, and I haven't seen any number that high for new grads.
$750 a year! That sounds very nice. Is that typical for a partnership track type job? Would this require a certain pedigree of residency or fellowship. I am a resident at a mid-tier program in NYC and my fellowship will be similar.
Unless your name is LA Doc00 lmao.
My father is a retired physician. Seeing his compensation package and career trajectory vs what everyone I know is experiencing is like night and day.
While that is kinda high for starting out, I think mario is simply sharing what his colleagues have shared with him, fwiw. Then again, he listed nine different colleagues salaries, so who knows if all nine of them are giving him truthful numbers. No one ever really knows unless you see their tax returns. On the other hand, those nine might be the cream-of-the-crop and the other pathologists out of the 50-60 he's known over the years might be worse off. I wonder for if the higher earning pathologists on that list are out in the styx? Generally speaking, metro areas = lower income in pathology (like most other specialties).
Maybe it’s just hearsay and maybe Mario is well intentioned - but that’s just not the market for new grads doing general SP in NE.
I interviewed for a job in upstate NY 375 starting with 100k bonus. No joke. Group of maybe 3 or 4 pathologists.
Fair enough
No I’m not a dermpath. It was a general pathologist position but mainly surgpath. Sounded like a good surgpath job. Medium sized hospital. But again this is not common to find a job like this.
