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radmonckey said:
Some academic positions have unique revenue streams where you can have paychecks coming from multiple entities, some of which are not publicly disclosed. I used to have a position like this and everyone in the in-laws family thought they knew what I made, but it was actually much higher, which was how I preferred it.
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I've long speculated that this may be the case. With the Kentucky data I assume that there is some sort of bonus compensation and that all they are reporting is the base comp. What i'm more curious about is data that comes from irs form 990s. I wonder if there are similar ways where revenue streams are not disclosed...which would seem somewhat sketchy legally as the 990 is supposed to include income from "related" organizations...how "related" is defined though I don't know.

As an example, I've browsed the 990's of some non-profit academic institutions in states where all academic salaries aren't just published online and found what seems like awfully low compensation for some chairs.
 
radoncopotamus said:
This is fake news. UK offered >$320k for their main campus position for new grads.
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My number is from several years back for satellite clinic work. Looking at the salary data base it looks like their most junior attending who graduated a few years back makes $320,000. The department's website doesn't list those staffing the satellite clinics so I can't look those salaries up.
 
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lhl said:
I've long speculated that this may be the case. With the Kentucky data I assume that there is some sort of bonus compensation and that all they are reporting is the base comp. What i'm more curious about is data that comes from irs form 990s. I wonder if there are similar ways where revenue streams are not disclosed...which would seem somewhat sketchy legally as the 990 is supposed to include income from "related" organizations...how "related" is defined though I don't know.

As an example, I've browsed the 990's of some non-profit academic institutions in states where all academic salaries aren't just published online and found what seems like awfully low compensation for some chairs.
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I'm not aware of uk having a satellite position any longer. The job posted on Astro is a position with a larger physician group in Lexington. Iow, not a uk employee. The salary is higher than what's listed fwiw.

Edit: meant to reply to fiji
 
metview said:
320k/yr to live in Lexington, Kentucky? ROFL. That's pathetic. I'd rather drop out of residency and work a cubicle job paying 100k/yr in a real city.
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Lexington was never my cup of tea despite the low CoL. I mean unless you like bourbons/whiskey etc and horse races.
 
metview said:
320k/yr to live in Lexington, Kentucky? ROFL. That's pathetic. I'd rather drop out of residency and work a cubicle job paying 100k/yr in a real city.
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Wait till you see what they offer new grads now.
 
I feel somewhat safer to disclose more of my personal thoughts at this time:

I graduated from a Canadian program in 2019, 1 year fellowship since, and have kept up with my ABRs (minus orals). Fellowship was great, although I did have a post about a rocky start where pay was delayed... but overall was a great experience in the end. I have been closely following US RO market and had been applying for US jobs on an off this past year. My experience with a limited personal US RO network:

1) One offer at 340k at assistant prof level in moderate size academic centre in what would be described on this forum as an undesirable location. In the end, wasn't for me. Also COVID would have put a stop to it even if I had said yes.
2) One friend of a friend that was looking in a very nice location, offered 3 day a week PP work for 300k. Was anticipating visiting the location, but this was right around COVID and just logistically speaking was not possible even if was a favourable opportunity
3) Another acquaintance might have had another opportunity at the same time commitment and rate as #2

With hunting for jobs, I had applied for places that had put freezes due to COVID, and would be expecting to reapply in the fall. I had a handful of remote interviews which also present their own challenges (note - make sure you have good lighting and a wired internet conenction!).

Now I by choice or not, I am stuck North of the border but have recently ended up with my dream job in the end so despite the frustrations I'm happy about how things worked out.

With my experience of how things have been with the Canadian market, I can really attest that poor job mobility as an MD really disrupts people on a personal level. Unclear future plans, limited, geographical inflexibility of employment; all of these limit one's ability to settle down and focus on personal lives and growth at a time when those start to become more important with a person's values; a person in their late 20s/early 30s is going to want to find a place to settle down with their partner, but it's very hard to do so when you don't know where you'll be working 6 months from now. At the present, I think lateral mobility up North is greater than what even might be described on this forum, and ultimately I think things there are set to be better in the future than what will happen in the US. As a consequence though, as a jr grad you are competing against people who have had time to accumulate more experience and accomplishments, which limits your ability to obtain the most desirable positions. Overtraining is going to negatively effect not only people's career options, but there is a real personal cost to having to deal with uncertainty, frustration against an inflexible system, and inward reflection at some point at what is an immense sunk cost of training. I can empathize greatly with some posters here that have struggled and have taken employment opportunities that have not been ideal. I can also empathize with how it really can affect personal relationships. I really feel for the current batch of trainees that might have had their sights on some idealized practice and not have those opportunities available for them, or have their labour be exploited to take advantage of their desire for particular locations or practices.

If I was a medical student now, I wouldn't touch this field in the US with a 10 ft pole and go running in the opposite direction. If I was a jr resident, I would look at retraining in IM or psych or something. Senior resident is closer to the light but there will be challenges for sure.

My rant is done now, and maybe it will help someone save themselves a year or more of existential anguish.
 
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taserlaser said:
At the present, I think lateral mobility up North is greater than what even might be described on this forum, and ultimately I think things there are set to be better in the future than what will happen in the US.
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Wow, this is an incredible statement. The Canadian RadOnc market has been notoriously bad much longer than ours - but the Canadians know this and took action to rectify their situation. If someone with experience in both systems feels this way...yikes.
 
There are several inaccurate posts here..

1. University of Kentucky's pension data quoted above is outdated. UKY hasn't been offering any pension plan for any of it's employees for more than a decade. But UKY's retirement 403b matching is excellent and probably one of the best in academia.

2. As Radoncpotamus said, starting salary is not 240K, its upwards of 320K and as Neuronix said, Its comparable or slight better than other academic offers in midwest region(One of my co-resident was offered $300K from Ohio state). UKY hired two new facutly who will start in August of this year. And salary/bonus increases with performance in the first 5 years.

3. Dr. Randall is an amazing chair, excellent educator and strong resident advocate. He is always ready to pick up phone and bat/vouch for most of his residents and helps open opportunities that otherwise would not have been available. He makes as many calls as resident asks and completely on resident's side during stressful Job search process. He also helps resident evaluate different Job offers (both academic and private practice) and advice in the right direction. He is a chair every resident would want to train under.

4. In the last 10 years most of his residents had Job offers by PGY-4 itself. One resident (superstar) signed in PGY-2 and another resident (another superstar) signed in the end of PGY-3. Current chief has more than one Job offer in her PGY-4 itself in the region of her choice..

5. Dr. Randall is also very good mentor for early career faculty. He helped newly hired faculty to get onto NRG committees and become PI on national protocols which is what most of early career faculty wants.

6. More importantly Dr. Randall is an awesome educator and pioneer in Cs-131 brachytherapy in recurrent gynecological cancers. He had patients coming in from California, NJ and Texas all the way to Kentucky for these procedures. He encourages autonomy while doing brachytherapy cases. Most of the residents logged >200 brachytherapy procedures (Gyn and Prostate) towards the end of the training.

People will lose allies by making personal comments (financial earnings) and using derogatory language. It is very reasonable to ask for data. Scarbtj posted a nice mathematical analysis on SDN about how many new consults each Rad Onc needs annually to have a rewarding/financially stable career. I thing that analysis should be submitted to Journals for publication. Then people will find more allies for their cause..
 
elementaryschooleconomics said:
Wow, this is an incredible statement. The Canadian RadOnc market has been notoriously bad much longer than ours - but the Canadians know this and took action to rectify their situation. If someone with experience in both systems feels this way...yikes.
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I mean it still is very difficult to say with certainty how things have played out. Canada has seen a continual slow growth/improvement in positions ever since I remember following in my last year of med school (there were 3 advertised on the national job board or some ridiculous small number like that that I can remember). It’s slow and steady. Lot of retirements expected, although all the analysis up here show employment is still probably more related to utilization and patient demographics. But significantly smaller market (call it a tenth of the US). Things are better still in the US I think at this point, but I think people’s analysis and thought experiments here are internally consistent and I don’t see things changing for you all for a long time unless there are systematic changes and position restrictions. But things can and do change, so we’ll see how this assertion holds up 5 and 10 years from now. I’m certainly not a health human resources or economics specialist.
 
taserlaser said:
I mean it still is very difficult to say with certainty how things have played out. Canada has seen a continual slow growth/improvement in positions ever since I remember following in my last year of med school (there were 3 advertised on the national job board or some ridiculous small number like that that I can remember). It’s slow and steady. Lot of retirements expected, although all the analysis up here show employment is still probably more related to utilization and patient demographics. But significantly smaller market (call it a tenth of the US). Things are better still in the US I think at this point, but I think people’s analysis and thought experiments here are internally consistent and I don’t see things changing for you all for a long time unless there are systematic changes and position restrictions. But things can and do change, so we’ll see how this assertion holds up 5 and 10 years from now. I’m certainly not a health human resources or economics specialist.
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Also before I forget - as an aside, I think it’s about 4 or 5 individuals that I’m personally aware of in my class, or about 1/4 - 1/5 of the class itself depending on how you split the numbers that took up employment opportunities in the US. All academic I believe. Some people I’m aware of too that came back this year too. There’s always a small number of migration.
 
bachiraki said:
People will lose allies by making personal comments (financial earnings) and using derogatory language. It is very reasonable to ask for data. Scarbtj posted a nice mathematical analysis on SDN about how many new consults each Rad Onc needs annually to have a rewarding/financially stable career. I thing that analysis should be submitted to Journals for publication. Then people will find more allies for their cause..
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I'm glad you had a good experience training at UK and/or working there as a first-year attending. I'm glad you like the chair. But that's not really the point.

The chair of an academic program is really the only spigot for the # of trainees, because ABR and ASTRO "cannot" do anything about it. If a chair requires peer reviewed/published data on unemployment and falling incomes in order to be persuaded, I would argue he/she does not have the best interests of their trainees or the field in mind. By the time there is >1 year of higher unemployment/decreased hiring/falling salaries, there are reasonably at least 6-7 years of additional trainees in the pipeline. That's another 1000-1200 people who will need jobs even if drastic action is taken.
 
GapCalc said:
I'm glad you had a good experience training at UK and/or working there as a first-year attending. I'm glad you like the chair. But that's not really the point.

The chair of an academic program is really the only spigot for the # of trainees, because ABR and ASTRO "cannot" do anything about it. If a chair requires peer reviewed/published data on unemployment and falling incomes in order to be persuaded, I would argue he/she does not have the best interests of their trainees or the field in mind. By the time there is >1 year of higher unemployment/decreased hiring/falling salaries, there are reasonably at least 6-7 years of additional trainees in the pipeline. That's another 1000-1200 people who will need jobs even if drastic action is taken.
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There are always conflicts of interest in either parties of arguments/debates. I am not saying we should wait till we have data on unemployment/falling incomes/bread lines etc.

Ben Smith published a mathematical analysis (with some assumptions and not factoring hypofractionation) predicting shortage of Rad Oncs in 2010. More recently in a similar same way Scarbrtj did another mathematical analysis showing Oversupply on SDN. That mathematical analysis will give reasonable estimates of oversupply on which leadership can act upon.
 
bachiraki said:
People will lose allies by making personal comments (financial earnings) and using derogatory language. It is very reasonable to ask for data. Scarbtj posted a nice mathematical analysis on SDN about how many new consults each Rad Onc needs annually to have a rewarding/financially stable career. I thing that analysis should be submitted to Journals for publication. Then people will find more allies for their cause..
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Until then you want to see job surveys like this?The Employment Status of 1995 Graduates From Radiation Oncology Training Programs in the United States - PubMed

The data is very clear that slots have more than doubled since the turn of the century. The onus is on those who expanded to prove those slots were needed after an epic bad job market in the 1990s which Randall is gaslighting about. The data/recommendations are also clear about which way fractions are going
 
bachiraki said:
There are several inaccurate posts here..

1. University of Kentucky's pension data quoted above is outdated. UKY hasn't been offering any pension plan for any of it's employees for more than a decade. But UKY's retirement 403b matching is excellent and probably one of the best in academia.

2. As Radoncpotamus said, starting salary is not 240K, its upwards of 320K and as Neuronix said, Its comparable or slight better than other academic offers in midwest region(One of my co-resident was offered $300K from Ohio state). UKY hired two new facutly who will start in August of this year. And salary/bonus increases with performance in the first 5 years.

3. Dr. Randall is an amazing chair, excellent educator and strong resident advocate. He is always ready to pick up phone and bat/vouch for most of his residents and helps open opportunities that otherwise would not have been available. He makes as many calls as resident asks and completely on resident's side during stressful Job search process. He also helps resident evaluate different Job offers (both academic and private practice) and advice in the right direction. He is a chair every resident would want to train under.

4. In the last 10 years most of his residents had Job offers by PGY-4 itself. One resident (superstar) signed in PGY-2 and another resident (another superstar) signed in the end of PGY-3. Current chief has more than one Job offer in her PGY-4 itself in the region of her choice..

5. Dr. Randall is also very good mentor for early career faculty. He helped newly hired faculty to get onto NRG committees and become PI on national protocols which is what most of early career faculty wants.

6. More importantly Dr. Randall is an awesome educator and pioneer in Cs-131 brachytherapy in recurrent gynecological cancers. He had patients coming in from California, NJ and Texas all the way to Kentucky for these procedures. He encourages autonomy while doing brachytherapy cases. Most of the residents logged >200 brachytherapy procedures (Gyn and Prostate) towards the end of the training.

People will lose allies by making personal comments (financial earnings) and using derogatory language. It is very reasonable to ask for data. Scarbtj posted a nice mathematical analysis on SDN about how many new consults each Rad Onc needs annually to have a rewarding/financially stable career. I thing that analysis should be submitted to Journals for publication. Then people will find more allies for their cause..
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Interesting take. I normally stay away from making negative generalizations about specific programs but I personally interviewed at UK for residency several years ago, and was actively discouraged from going there by the residents and at least one attending. I'm glad to hear your experience and opinions are positive.
 
medgator said:
Until then you want to see job surveys like this?The Employment Status of 1995 Graduates From Radiation Oncology Training Programs in the United States - PubMed

The data is very clear that slots have more than doubled since the turn of the century. The onus is on those who expanded to prove those slots were needed after an epic bad job market in the 1990s which Randall is gaslighting about. The data/recommendations are also clear about which way fractions are going
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You are right, They proved Shortage with Ben Smith's 2010 analysis published in JCO. He published another analysis in 2016 that 2010 prediction was not accurate. I would encourage Scarbrtj to publish his analysis too which I think made better assumptions than 2010 Ben Smith's paper..
 
bachiraki said:
You are right, They proved Shortage with Ben Smith's 2010 analysis published in JCO. He published another analysis in 2016 that 2010 prediction was not accurate. I would encourage Scarbrtj to publish his analysis too which I think made better assumptions than 2010 Ben Smith's paper..
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Shortage was never proved. It was assumed. 1995 survey with 100% response rate clearly showed we were overtraining though and that's why many programs shut down, many slots were nixed and training was extended an additional year.

Interesting how Randall totally ignored that entire decade despite practicing in it. As many have already quoted in this thread:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
 
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bachiraki said:
There are several inaccurate posts here..

1. University of Kentucky's pension data quoted above is outdated. UKY hasn't been offering any pension plan for any of it's employees for more than a decade. But UKY's retirement 403b matching is excellent and probably one of the best in academia.

2. As Radoncpotamus said, starting salary is not 240K, its upwards of 320K and as Neuronix said, Its comparable or slight better than other academic offers in midwest region(One of my co-resident was offered $300K from Ohio state). UKY hired two new facutly who will start in August of this year. And salary/bonus increases with performance in the first 5 years.

3. Dr. Randall is an amazing chair, excellent educator and strong resident advocate. He is always ready to pick up phone and bat/vouch for most of his residents and helps open opportunities that otherwise would not have been available. He makes as many calls as resident asks and completely on resident's side during stressful Job search process. He also helps resident evaluate different Job offers (both academic and private practice) and advice in the right direction. He is a chair every resident would want to train under.

4. In the last 10 years most of his residents had Job offers by PGY-4 itself. One resident (superstar) signed in PGY-2 and another resident (another superstar) signed in the end of PGY-3. Current chief has more than one Job offer in her PGY-4 itself in the region of her choice..

5. Dr. Randall is also very good mentor for early career faculty. He helped newly hired faculty to get onto NRG committees and become PI on national protocols which is what most of early career faculty wants.

6. More importantly Dr. Randall is an awesome educator and pioneer in Cs-131 brachytherapy in recurrent gynecological cancers. He had patients coming in from California, NJ and Texas all the way to Kentucky for these procedures. He encourages autonomy while doing brachytherapy cases. Most of the residents logged >200 brachytherapy procedures (Gyn and Prostate) towards the end of the training.

People will lose allies by making personal comments (financial earnings) and using derogatory language. It is very reasonable to ask for data. Scarbtj posted a nice mathematical analysis on SDN about how many new consults each Rad Onc needs annually to have a rewarding/financially stable career. I thing that analysis should be submitted to Journals for publication. Then people will find more allies for their cause..
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Kudos to him for being such a strong advocate of HIS residents. However, the experience of his residents is very atypical. It's very likely that his perception of the job market is very different from that of the average rad onc resident. Sounds like he needs to hold a webinar for chairs/PDs on "How to go to bat for your residents".
 
bachiraki said:
You are right, They proved Shortage with Ben Smith's 2010 analysis published in JCO. He published another analysis in 2016 that 2010 prediction was not accurate. I would encourage Scarbrtj to publish his analysis too which I think made better assumptions than 2010 Ben Smith's paper..
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Nothing was proved, nothing can be "proved", evidence can only be gathered for or against an argument. Ben Smith is an amazing person and doctor - he is not an economist. We would benefit from actual economists performing actual economic analysis of RadOnc, not people publishing database studies.
 
elementaryschooleconomics said:
Interesting take. I normally stay away from making negative generalizations about specific programs but I personally interviewed at UK for residency several years ago, and was actively discouraged from going there by the residents and at least one attending. I'm glad to hear your experience and opinions are positive.
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i had exact same experience. The residents strongly hinted at low satisfaction, lack of education and plenty of scut. I did not leave back then with high opinion
 
bachiraki said:
You are right, They proved Shortage with Ben Smith's 2010 analysis published in JCO. He published another analysis in 2016 that 2010 prediction was not accurate. I would encourage Scarbrtj to publish his analysis too which I think made better assumptions than 2010 Ben Smith's paper..
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Speaking of Ben Smith...

 
thecarbonionangle said:
i had exact same experience. The residents strongly hinted at low satisfaction, lack of education and plenty of scut. I did not leave back then with high opinion
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Granted, this was a long time ago, but same. In fact, both Kentucky programs were unusually vocal in their displeasure with their programs. Louisville, even more so than Lexington. But... really I think those were the only two programs that I heard anything but positivity about.
 
bachiraki said:
1. University of Kentucky's pension data quoted above is outdated. UKY hasn't been offering any pension plan for any of it's employees for more than a decade. But UKY's retirement 403b matching is excellent and probably one of the best in academia.
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Did you guys keep your 403b matching and contributions intact during and after COVID? Just curious.
 
Neuronix said:
Did you guys keep your 403b matching and contributions intact during and after COVID? Just curious.
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I am not working at UKY so I don't know post-COVID changes. I will find out and let you know.
 
medgator said:
Speaking of Ben Smith...

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Ben Smith's paper suggesting a shortage of radoncs is one of the worst pieces of "scholarship" ever to grace our field. Proven so very wrong only a few short years later. Why anyone still takes him seriously is beyond me.

I'm happy to hear that the UK chair's residents are happy with him. However, for him to suggest that 'data' is needed to prove there is a problem with the job market is spectacularly cruel. The 'data' he is looking for would be evidence of lives and careers ruined. Leaders are supposed to find ways to prevent these kind of catastrophic problems from occurring in the first place. Not surprised to find out he isn't much of one.
 
bachiraki said:
You are right, They proved Shortage with Ben Smith's 2010 analysis published in JCO. He published another analysis in 2016 that 2010 prediction was not accurate. I would encourage Scarbrtj to publish his analysis too which I think made better assumptions than 2010 Ben Smith's paper..
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Thanks. The Dark Science of analyzing rad onc workforce and the needs thereof is FRUSTRATING. It's frustrating because the data is hazy. And I really try to make zero assumptions. It's more of: "here's the high side, and here's the low side" sort of thing, confidence interval-ish. And you're right: Ben Smith in 2016 disagreed with the Ben Smith of 2010. (I haven't looked at my own analysis in some time, so I should take care not to disagree with my past self lol.) All this leads to two questions: why did Ben Smith disagree with himself, and why is (my) ~2020 analysis (we have too many!) so WILDLY discordant with a 2010 analysis (we have too few!).

As I recall from my review, it more or less boiled down to some easy to understand things. First, cancer incidence and prevalence didn't rise as predicted (people quit smoking, the population didn't boom, PSA screening went down, yada yada); prevalence went up but not near as much as 2010's denizens foresaw. Second, the utilization of XRT stagnated-to-mildly-declined; was predicted to upswing (we were in the ass-end of the IMRT Golden Era after all). And third, the rate of rad onc production went really, really up. And fourth... WHICH I DON"T EVEN INCLUDE IN MOST MY "LABOR" MODELS... hypofractionation happened. The mild negative of #1 and mild negative of #2 magnified together (and seem to be predicted to increasingly magnify in an accelerating fashion) to augment a widening "reality gap" with #3 (and #4 magnifying with #3).

I am uncomfortable about what ~600K new rad onc patients per year divided over ~5000 radiation oncologists means. On one hand, it means 120 pts (on the high side; ~100 pts on the low side) per rad onc per year (weirdly low, right?). The only way I can explain that is, we get a lot of repeat business and treat a lot of palliative patients. (The ~600K new per year is from a pool of ~1.8M new cancer pts per year in the US; rad onc utilization is about 30% for ALL newly diagnosed/treated cancer pts). But make no mistake: ~600K new rad onc pts per year and ~5000 rad oncs are not "assumptions." These two things seem to be rather correct/verifiable. But "120 new pts/year"... think of it as unitless metric. Compare it with the past, maybe predict it in the future. In that way it's kind of like a BED: it only means something in comparison to another BED. It appears this number was about ~145 new pts/year ~8 years ago. In other words, it would seem rad oncs are about (120/145 = 0.83) ~15-20% less busy than ~8y ago. *That* number I AM NOT uncomfortable with ("From 2007 to 2018, the mean number of total EBRT cases per [resident] decreased [13.2%], as did the proportion of definitive cases"), and I think it has the ring of truth. If true, the decrease is due to: slow growth in new rad onc pts (verfiable, not assumption), slow growth in cancer prevalence (verifiable), decline in fractions (verifiable), growth in residents and rad oncs (verifiable).

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elementaryschooleconomics said:
From ROHub:

View attachment 311973

I feel like this is probably the attitude a lot of the naysayers take. The problem is, this data can never really truly exist, and the closest we could get would require actual economists, not residents doing database analysis.

The math is simply: 127% increase in resident positions from 2001 to 2019 (SOURCE).

Therefore, to avoid an oversupply at least one of the following must take place:

1) A significant increase in the need for radiation therapy (either through more cancer patients, more fractions, more indications, etc)
2) A significant increase in the reimbursement for our services (similar to IMRT in the 2000s)
3) A significant increase in the number of practicing RadOncs retiring

I don't think any of the above have taken place, or will take place. I would argue the opposite has happened for points 1 and 2, and we don't have data for point 3.

This is just...basic math. Elementary school level math.
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I should have thought of this earlier, but the above is one of many first chinks in the "there's no data" armor... if the trend continues, in the next ~5y residents will not have enough cases to meet case log requirements due to our surplussing ways:

The number of [residents] per year increased by 66% from 114 in 2007 to 189 in 2018 (p<0.001, r=0.88). The overall mean of EBRT cases per [resident] decreased by 13.2%, from 521.9 in 2007 to 478.5 in 2018. The mean number of metastatic EBRT cases per GROR increased by 8.1%, from 120.2 in 2007 to 129.9 (p=0.001, r=0.87); the ratio of metastatic to non-metastatic cases per [resident] increased from 0.30 to 0.37. Among the 11 disease categories analyzed, the largest proportionate decreases were seen in hematology, lung, and genitourinary EBRT cases.
 
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It's the complete hypocrisy of the whole academic system that really galls people.

Chairs 10 years ago are completely fine with "cooking up" data to justify expansion for their department's own benefit (read the Ben Smith paper if you disagree with the term "cooking up"). Now with near grid lock in the job market, where even lateral let alone up moves are exceedingly difficult they need to see "data" because contraction would not be in their department's immediate own benefit. I wonder if ASTRO and the academic club that runs it would ever be willing to fund a real study looking at this, the number one issue facing the long term health of the specialty, by independent outside consultants instead of this silly look at the data that so and so rad onc came up with stuff. I'm guessing not.

It's not about how nice someone is in person, its about the lack of leadership and willingness to do the hard/right thing.
 
fiji128 said:
It's the complete hypocrisy of the whole academic system that really galls people.

Chairs 10 years ago are completely fine with "cooking up" data to justify expansion for their department's own benefit (read the Ben Smith paper if you disagree with the term "cooking up").
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Not just tangible benefits; also the ego/prestige benefits. Rad onc went from being the kid picked last on the kickball court to being the quarterback that all the guys were jealous of and the cheerleaders fought over. Gonna be tough going back to wimp status! If MDPhDs are the heart, no the flower, no the red rose of medical education, about 10 years ago perhaps half of all MDPhDs were picking rad onc! Spoiler alert: that's gonna change... to the chagrin of nobody-cum-somebody chairmen.
 
Putting aside the discussion of how nice Dr. Randall is, his contributions to GYN RO, the controversy of whether KY programs are worth a damn, if the job he was offering was predatory, 2:1 vs 1:1 match, though I believe all of these are apropos and admissible in this discussion, my biggest issue with Dr Randall is his refusal to lead. It is deepy disappointing he chose to selectively ignore information and demand “data”, really a cruel euphemism for many people being underemployed and unemployed. What is the tragedy of our field IMHO is that we have an overall dearth of leadership. And you just cant dig yourself out of a hole if you cannot even admit there is an issue.

there are too many entrenched people in our field with opinions and views which are counterproductive and directly antagonistic to the solutions that may be found out of this hole.
 
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Neuronix said:
:laugh: There are about 600 MD/PhDs a year. Even in rad onc's heydey it was around 25-33% MD/PhDs, so maybe 40 MD/PhDs a year.
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You'd know better than me ... I remember that one year when half the OHSU MDPhDs went into rad onc.
Nevertheless, 1% or less of med students go into rad onc (and ~3% of all graduating MDs are MDPhDs I reckon by the ~600 number). For rad onc to have had 25-33% or even 50% MDPhD representation, it shows (showed) the outsizedness of it all. Tulip mania!

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Charting Outcomes 2016 Match

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Radiation Oncology, Pathology, and Child Neurology had the highest percentages of matched U.S. seniors with a Ph.D. degree.

This was "peak" RadOnc. This class will graduate next year.
 
Chartreuse Wombat said:
Charting Outcomes 2016 Match

View attachment 312138

Radiation Oncology, Pathology, and Child Neurology had the highest percentages of matched U.S. seniors with a Ph.D. degree.

This was "peak" RadOnc. This class will graduate next year.
Click to expand...
I'd like to know how to better read this. Neuronix said there's ~600 MDPhDs a year. At first blush, all these integers don't seem to add up that high? Second, am I seeing that not a single MDPhD who tried to get into rad onc was jilted? Third, does child neuro seem to jilt >2/3 of all MDPhD applicants? Likely I am seeing all this incorrectly. But good graph; I guess that's in that match data booklet somewhere.
 
Chartreuse Wombat said:
Charting Outcomes 2016 Match

View attachment 312138

Radiation Oncology, Pathology, and Child Neurology had the highest percentages of matched U.S. seniors with a Ph.D. degree.

This was "peak" RadOnc. This class will graduate next year.
Click to expand...

graduate in an ongoing pandemic, recession, bear market and of the worst job markets (“ feel lucky if you get A job”). This highly impressive class like ones recently before them, have much to look forward to. Very fun times to be a RO.
 
scarbrtj said:
I'd like to know how to better read this. Neuronix said there's ~600 MDPhDs a year. At first blush, all these integers don't seem to add up that high? Second, am I seeing that not a single MDPhD who tried to get into rad onc was jilted? Third, does child neuro seem to jilt >2/3 of all MDPhD applicants? Likely I am seeing all this incorrectly. But good graph; I guess that's in that match data booklet somewhere.
Click to expand...

i think many people go into neuro because there is still much that is not known, lots of things to find out, neuroscience was like one of the hottest things when i was in undergraduate /grad school. Then you become a neurologist and realize that your main job is saying things are very “interesting” but there is nothing you can do about it. At least neurologists have been intelligent to grow their field, you can do sleep medicine, epilepsy, pain, interventionalist fellowship (turf war with IR/nsgy) and train to give chemo. Rad oncs? Well maybe you can threat some arthritis and some keloids? Maybe a heart here and there?
 
Just went to ROHub...

It has been 8 days and zero replies from #WomenWhoCurie, any radonc (let alone female radonc), or any ASTRO members...
So much for ASTRO to silence Simul...
This alone tells everyone the status of this field, nobody stands up for what is right.
Pretty much like the FDA commissioner fiasco, the only person that was vocal about the FDA commissioner fiasco is....surprise surprise surprise...Ralph!
 

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