Salary as an MD vs. PhD

[Eht-Ostaf]

Hello everyone,
I have 3 separate scenarios that I need your input on:

1. A foreign national with MBBS, who took the USMLE's and then licensed as an MD.
2. A US based MD/DO:
   1. Who just graduated with a bachelor's degree before getting MD.
   2. Who did not graduate with any bachelor's degree (just completed med school's pre-req) before getting MD/DO.

If all of the above gave up being a practicing physician and joined a college as a faculty member, would they receive compensation equivalent to a Ph.D? I'm asking because as far as I know, MD/DO is a professional degree, not a graduate degree.

Thanks for your input.

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[operaman]

I suppose it would depend on the institution and the job itself. If it’s a position with any kind of clinical component that’s revenue generating then the MD will almost certainly command a higher salary. If we’re taking a primarily research and teaching appointment, and the MD is a well funded PI then I could see him getting comparable salary to a similarly funded PhD.

I think where the difference occurs is whether the MD would get the job at all. For an entry level asst prof position teaching and doing research, they probably wouldn’t be competitive against PhD applicants as they wouldn’t have the same level of specific subject level knowledge. The instances where I’ve seen a non practicing MD hired as faculty without any clinical role is where they are established well-funded researchers in a given area. They’ll primarily do research and will often teach as well.

 

[Goro]

What kind of college? Undergrad? MD school? DO school? PA program?

At my DO schools, we have FMGs teaching in the classic preclinical science courses and they make pretty much what we PhDs make. What makes a difference is the amount of teaching experience.

 

[mistafab]

If you do more teaching/research, your salary will look like that of a teacher/researcher. Folks with MDs who do both (I.e. half day of clinic per week) get paid somewhere between MD and PHD pay. The more clinical work, the higher the pay (in general).

Pure research folks are a bit more variable than simply teachers though, since they can pay themselves if they are rainmakers/ballers in the game. However, those people are highly sought after and it’s not easy to become that person in academics. If you are this way, you would already know.

An MD doing pure research for a few years could make more jumping ship from academics to industry jobs as well. Just like a phd could.