What did you expect? Someone would pay you lots of money for publishing papers? I agree with other posters that this is actually a very generous salary for someone 100% non-clinical; you might find offers approaching 5 figures out there. Keep in mind, also, that you are paying a "tax" for the institutional name on your white coat - the bigger the name the higher the cost - which at some places is quite steep. Wanna say you work at Brigham or Harvard or wherever? It'll literally come out of your salary.
I post this any time there is discussion of salary: MD salaries are directly correlated to services you bill for, as well as services you are able to bill for that other physicians cannot (e.g. certain procedures, specialized tests), and patient volume; not how much training you have or what you've published. That's true in academics and community practice both. I'm a great teacher and do a little quality improvement on the side; I have advanced knowledge in a subspecialty field and can provide a standard of care which few other physicians can. That's probably worth 1-2% of my salary as an academic physician. But realistically, I'm not publishing any awesome papers, winning any national awards, or coming up with any brilliant ideas. I could cold turkey stop doing all of that, and at worst might get an email about how teaching more or doing other things might help my academic CV. But the other 98-99% of my value to my department is all about one number, which is the RVUs I generate.
There are institutions that will pay unique physicians a decent salary exclusively for their highly specialized expertise, regardless of their billing - our department has a few of those - but if you fall within the majority of academic physicians, just as community physicians, your bosses are going to want to see that you are annually generating revenue that exceeds your salary, by a decent margin.
I'll end with this: I know a physician (not at my institute) who is an international expert in a rare, life-threatening disease at a premier academic institute, to the extent that if you are diagnosed with this disease somewhere in the developed world, there is a decent chance you'll see them, as they almost exclusively see and study this disease. They present at international conferences and have a study full of awards and diplomas. No one could argue against this person's clinical value. But because they're 40% clinical, and academic, they make less annually than the number stated in the original post. That's just the name of the game.
