Mainstream media reports Pathologist shortage is 'delaying cancer diagnosis'

[LoaLoa]

I "like" a lot of things. I like basketball. I like calligraphy. Should I aim for the NBA? Are those good investments? No. Pathology is not a good investment for a US MD with good scores. No matter how much I like it. 6 years of training and new grads are making 180-200k? That's a joke. Meanwhile you look up radiology job postings for new grads and you see something to the tune of "8-5 pm, 12 weeks vacation, occasional weekend call, 500k base salary". Same lifestyle, similar type of job yet better pay and better market. Sure pay won't always be this high but itll always be higher than pathology on average. As will the job market. Volume is higher, there's more flexibility and new imaging modalities come out all the time that are getting better and better (ie decreased need for biopsies). AI won't make a difference in my lifetime. If anything it'll make my life easier and double my reads

While I do not doubt that there are positions availalbe for the salaries you mention, in every market I’ve been in, new grads in private practice were making significantly more than that.

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[Mamba824]

While I do not doubt that there are positions availalbe for the salaries you mention, in every market I’ve been in, new grads in private practice were making significantly more than that.

Those jobs require you to move. To the middle of nowhere. And every day more PPs are bought out. The partnership model is dying.

 

[LoaLoa]

Those jobs require you to move. To the middle of nowhere. And every day more PPs are bought out. The partnership model is dying.

These are employed (non-partnership) positions in two different major metro areas in Texas I’m talking about.

I agree that the partnership model is dying, and I agree that the job market is poor in a lot of places, but the salaries you’re listing are probably $75-100K lower than the going rate in many parts of the country.

 

[Guest8]

If anything it'll make my life easier and double my reads

If it doubles the number of reads you can do, that means it halves the number of radiologists needed to do the reads. That gives you a 50/50 chance of keeping your job. I wouldn't use that argument, that's the whole reason paths aren't excited about AI, either.

 

[LoaLoa]

If it doubles the number of reads you can do, that means it halves the number of radiologists needed to do the reads. That gives you a 50/50 chance of keeping your job. I wouldn't use that argument, that's the whole reason paths aren't excited about AI, either.

I’m excited about it. I think that over the short- to medium-term, AI has the potential to improve quality, increase productivity and increase profits, all at once. The chance that artificial intelligence will make me unemployed (or even less busy or poorer, during my practice lifetime) is close to zero.

Much bigger economic risks to the average pathology resident are lab industry consolidation, the continued commoditization of our professional work engendered by the IOASE to the Stark Law, and the impending doom of the traditional small group practice model. Digital pathology (not artificial intelligence, per se) has the potential to dramatically speed up all of these processes, by providing megalabs and health systems a way to bypass the geographic barriers that currently limit consolidation.

 

[yaah]

The one thing I wonder most about AI is who is going to pay for it.
In academic centers it can be a research thing.
In big reference lab it can be a strategy to increase efficiency and hire fewer people.
In standard groups less than 20 people someone is going to have to pay for it. The hospital probably won't. Would the group?
These technologies are not going to be cheap.