Money Matters...

[skipandgo]

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Does anybody know the average salary for a psych program director?

 

[3882370]

Varies by region, academic rank, and the other component of the job. Generally, however, you do it because you love it, not for the money. There are way better ways to make money. You can find academic salary ranges, by region, online.

 

[TexasPhysician]

I'd estimate roughly 175k. Usually directors have been in academics for years after starting at 150k and thus have gradually received raises to hit 175ish.

 

[shan564]

Some places might allow you to augment that salary by doing private work. Not sure if that's my cup of tea, but it might be helpful to help pay off the student loans before the interest gets out of control...

 

[vistaril]

I'd estimate roughly 175k. Usually directors have been in academics for years after starting at 150k and thus have gradually received raises to hit 175ish.

I'd bet the average is a bit more than that. The average program director has probably been out of residency for ~15 years(maybe more) and is probably at least an associate professor, maybe even higher. I'd guess the average full time salary for the typical new grad in academic psychiatry(and I don't mean community jobs with some academic affiliation) is probably 160k(obviously varies a bit across the country....145-150k in some places and maybe a bit higher in others). I find it hard to believe that program directors(who for the most part are not nearly close to being new grads) only 15k more than that on average. I'd guess 210-215k...average. Varies obviously be region and individual situations.

 

[whopper]

Don't become a PD for the money. It's like being a non-medical teacher. While that profession has a stable salary and good pension, it's a lot of heartache, woes, and it's really about wanting to teach and make the next generation better. You have to deal with a lot of resident complaints, and conversely put a lot of them in-line.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I'm not going to generalize to what other programs do, but it's going to be on par with your colleagues in that same institution. The institution is hiring you for 50% of your time (ACGME required) to be focused on the program, so (if they want a desirable PD) they will be generally be picking up the opportunity cost to you for that lost clinical time.

 

[TexasPhysician]

State employee salaries are public record. If you are interested in a certain area, google the local programs for the PD. Then look up the name on the state employee database and boom there it is.

 

[michaelrack]

State employee salaries are public record. If you are interested in a certain area, google the local programs for the PD. Then look up the name on the state employee database and boom there it is.

It may be a little more complicated. When I was an academic, I received a base salary from the medical school, a subsidy from the hospital for being a director of a consult service, a supplement from the dept of psychiatry, and also some income from the dept of medicine. The base salary and hospital subsidy were combined into one check; the other 2 were separate.

 

[shan564]

Compared to the base salary, do you have an idea of what is the norm for those extra subsidies/supplements? i.e. 5% of your total income vs. 25% vs. 50%?

 

[michaelrack]

Compared to the base salary, do you have an idea of what is the norm for those extra subsidies/supplements? i.e. 5% of your total income vs. 25% vs. 50%?

It is highly variable from institution to institution, but it can be 50%- a lot of these supplements are based on productivity or a percentage of collections from some of a doctor's clinical activities.

 

[whopper]

I've seen the average payments to attendings at academic institutions vary from about $115K to about $200K. Aside from the pay you need to factor in what level of control they have over you. Some institutions allow one to work at other places, others maintain tight rigidity over their attendings, not letting them do anything else outside the institution. If you find a plum opportunity to make money outside the institution, you can't exploit it.

Where I'm at, they pay the attendings quite well for an academic institution, and more so than I've seen at many other places, but they don't let you do anything outside of them. The most you'll be able to do "outside" must be allowed by the department, so if it's not something they own, they'll take a cut so big it's not worth it in most cases. I know of some methods to make good money outside of the institution but I can't do anything about this.

If you know how to make money, it might be worth it for you to be at an academic institution that doesn't pay well so long as you can do other things, or not care as much about the money.

 

[Leo Aquarius]

Pardon my soap box for a second. $115K a year is . . . ahem . . . not to sound insensitive. . . sad for 16 years of school / training especially for a physician. You could work overtime at a doughnut shop and make something close to that (I kid a little).

Seriously, who would take that low of a salary after grueling painful socially-sapping medical training? I consider anything around $100K middle class, upper middle class.

By the way doctor's aren't even wealthy. Brain surgeons making $500K give me a break. They don't impress me. Making $1Mill is wealthy, defining the lower tier of the wealthy demographic.

I went into medicine prepared to be upper middle class . . . *sigh*

 

[SteinUmStein]

Are there really full time positions that start that low? My understanding was that even the lower paid academic positions started closer to 140-150k.

 

[whopper]

New
Pardon my soap box for a second. $115K a year is . . . ahem . . . not to sound insensitive. . . sad for 16 years of school / training especially for a physician. You could work overtime at a doughnut shop and make something close to that (I kid a little).

Yep. Totally agree.

Here's what I'm talking about with being able to make money outside the instituion. If you're a professor, some drug reps may see you as higher on the totem pole for promoting their product. You could do your own private practice outside the institution. You could be the go-to guy for the local news if something happens in the news where mental illness is involved and you could make big money from that or at least promote your practice.

Some institutions don't enact strong control over their doctors, so they might not make much from that institution, but could make a heck of a lot of money elsewhere and being in academia could help it.

Of course, there's ethical issues with this. Promoting meds for a drug company isn't exactly seen as honorable. The department might hurrumph you in your endeavors outside their institution, but the bottom line is some of them, it seems to me, are operating on a notion of they won't pay you much so you might as well do some work elsewhere. Either that or they're expecting new attendings to not know what they're worth and they're trying to sap as much out of you beofre you figure out you're a sucker.

Not surprisingly, the pay has been like a bell curve with most of the offers around $170-180. I've heard of some places offering $125K in NY of all places (Where the cost of living is high!). About two years ago a resident about to become an attending told me she was being offered $125K and I told her walk away from the offer. They upped it to $150K without any argument. That's what I'm talking about with new attendings. They don't know what the going rate is. Some departments will start with a low-ball offer. (I still told her to walk away from it but she took it. Oh well. My advice would've been minimum $160K-still not great but look into the possiblity of loan-repayments, side opporutnities for money, etc.)

I knew of a place in NJ that was paying about $115K. Those were rare exceptions to the rule and dont' expect this to be the norm. Don't ever take a job for less than $150K a year unless there's something very exceptional about it such as they also give you a pure gold brick in addition to the money, or Gordon Ramsay will personally make you dinner once a week.

 

[vistaril]

Pardon my soap box for a second. $115K a year is . . . ahem . . . not to sound insensitive. . . sad for 16 years of school / training especially for a physician. You could work overtime at a doughnut shop and make something close to that (I kid a little).

Seriously, who would take that low of a salary after grueling painful socially-sapping medical training? I consider anything around $100K middle class, upper middle class.

By the way doctor's aren't even wealthy. Brain surgeons making $500K give me a break. They don't impress me. Making $1Mill is wealthy, defining the lower tier of the wealthy demographic.

I went into medicine prepared to be upper middle class . . . *sigh*

the only brain surgeons making 500k are those in academics.....a brain surgeon in pp can line up spine cases and clear 500k by April....

I've never seen salaries as low as 115k in psych. but hey, who knows eventually.....

Honestly, I don't think the salaries will get that low. I do think the workloads and grindhouse philosophy will increase eventually though for the jobs above that range, so maybe in 5 years someone wishes they could get 115k to have a nice job with time to see patients and a nice lifestyle as opposed to 180k to be the ultimate grindhouse.

 

[Shikima]

There needs to be a grindhouse of DBT for all the Axis II out there.

 

[whopper]

Honestly, I don't think the salaries will get that low.

They usually don't. The doctors that took that $115 were a combination of suckers and poor doctors. The only thing going for that particular job is the department used the residents as slave-labor so the attendings didn't do much, and when the attendings didn't teach, the program didn't do much to make them teach.

When I say "only thing going" I don't mean it was acceptable, but let's face it. There's enough antisocial doctors out there that believe they should be serviced as if they're royalty.