Pathology Instructor Position At AUC, St Maarten

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LADoc00

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There is an instructor position open at the AUC in the Dutch West Indies for a pathologist. No clinical responsibilities and no research.

Would you consider a job like this? Why or why not?

I dont know the salary, but I do know:
Tax free zone, no capital gains.
A bachelor pad condo near the beach can be had there for about 150K.
Short flight to Miami International.
Boat ride to Aruba.
There is an active volcano on the island though (escape route??).

To me, if I was a single guy without debt, this would be incredibly attractive especially if I had spent 5-10 years slugging it out in private prac or academia.

Pics:
stmaarten.jpg


pool-343x645.jpg
 
As a recent alum, I guess I am uniquely qualified to comment.

We'd heard rumors around campus that salary was in the high 5 figures for PhDs and low six figures for MD clinicians, with some wiggle room if you took administrative duties or were hired at full Professor (hehe, full Professor of Caribbean med school!). Not the best money, but the workload is minimal: 90 mins of lecture and one office hour daily. The faculty when I was there put their office hour at 7am and class at 8, leaving their day entirely free. Curriculum (at least when I was there) consists of strictly big Robbins, spread over two four-month trimesters. No student histology/microscope lab; feel free to augment your lectures with your own personal cases. Other path faculty might (turnover is high in the Caribbean) include a retired Navy captain AP/CP/NP who did neuro and blood bank, a AP/CP (Harvard grad and trained at Mayo) who retired at ~55 from his own rural New England private practice and maybe 1-2 others. Class runs three trimesters, all year round, so no free summer for vacation.

Other comments: St. Maarten is a nice place to take a vacation; living there (even if you have money and few responsibilities) is challenging and often frustrating. It's a small island (<40 sq miles), and even if you take off somewhere else every weekend, cabin fever may still result. The government is wildly corrupt and the infrastructure is terrible (the road is bad, the power and water are unreliable)

A bachelor pad can be had for $150k, but it won't look like your photos.

There are several legal, government-regulated brothels (girls are tested monthly).

Aruba is not really accessible by boat (it's like 1000 miles); Antigua and St. Barth's (really nice) and the Virgin Islands are, though. Miami International SUCKS; flying AA through San Juan is much easier.

No volcano anymore; the previous campus was located on Montserrat. The volcano there erupted in 1995/6 (not sure) and literally buried the campus and half the island.

The majority of the other faculty are clinicians and researchers retired from US med schools (often from cold climates) who just love the idea that they get paid to teach one class a day and then swim in the ocean with a Cuban cigar and rum punch. If that is not the life for you, stay away. We had one guy (a nephrologist semi-retired from Hopkins) who was island-hopping on his yacht get recruited in the marina by the Neuroscience instructor (who lives on her boat).
 
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THANK YOU!

So, you have a small island, limited responsibilities, hookers, Cuban cigars and rum. Check.

As I said, this is could be a gem opportunity for the right guy. A cross between Capt Jack Sparrow and Juan Rosai perhaps? I like the living on the boat idea.

PS-Why is the turnover so high? Do people leave of their own accord or does the admin churn the faculty to keep the salaries low/margins off the students high? Are there long timers who "beat the system" and stay there for years?
 
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THANK YOU!

So, you have a small island, limited responsibilities, hookers, Cuban cigars and rum. Check.

As I said, this is could be a gem opportunity for the right guy. A cross between Capt Jack Sparrow and Juan Rosai perhaps? I like the living on the boat idea.

PS-Why is the turnover so high? Do people leave of their own accord or does the admin churn the faculty to keep the salaries low/margins off the students high? Are there long timers who "beat the system" and stay there for years?

Turnover is high for several reasons:

1. The Big 3 Caribbean med schools (St. George's on Grenada, Ross on Dominica and AUC) will offer bigger better deals to each others's faculty when their contracts are up (every 18-24 months)
2. People get sick of the lifestyle and just quit all together.
3. People who are already retired from one job decide they want to retire all together and leave.
4. The school is for-profit, and is owned solely by one man. ($35k+/yr tuition X 1000+ students X Federal Student Loans = MAD COIN) He is notoriously cheap, so I would not be surprised if he is low-balling the faculty.

That being said, if you can tolerate all those factors, there is no reason to say that you couldn't have a long career at a Caribbean med school. We had several old-timers (one Pharm prof was from the founding of the school in 1978) who were totally satisfied with the situation.
 
Oh, and another option would to be "Visiting Faculty" where you'd fly in for 2-4 weeks 1-3x a year to teach a block of lectures (enjoying the hookers and rum punch and so forth) and then take off back to the real world with a nice check. We had several people that did that also.
 
Oh, and another option would to be "Visiting Faculty" where you'd fly in for 2-4 weeks 1-3x a year to teach a block of lectures (enjoying the hookers and rum punch and so forth) and then take off back to the real world with a nice check. We had several people that did that also.


Umm... why doesn't every single pathologist in America do this? How do I sign up?
 
THANK YOU!

So, you have a small island, limited responsibilities, hookers, Cuban cigars and rum. Check.

As I said, this is could be a gem opportunity for the right guy. A cross between Capt Jack Sparrow and Juan Rosai perhaps? I like the living on the boat idea.

PS-Why is the turnover so high? Do people leave of their own accord or does the admin churn the faculty to keep the salaries low/margins off the students high? Are there long timers who "beat the system" and stay there for years?

The real question is.... can you set up your own pathology shop on St. Maarten (or any Carribean island-state)?
 
The real question is.... can you set up your own pathology shop on St. Maarten (or any Carribean island-state)?

How would you get the slides? The pop of St Maarten/Sint Martin(I think that is the name of the French side..) is a mere 30-40K. Not enough for 1 pathologist, then would need people with insurance who actually can pay you.

All the EU-controlled Carib. territories are under socialized medicine anyway, so there is no money there regardless.
 
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