Salary, demand, scope as a pathology.??

[license43]

Hi all.
I have some interest in pathology as a field but I heard some different opinions about pathology such as 'little to no demand,' 'low salary.' (especially in the east coast, as I want to move back to NYC when i'm done with everything).

I mean I don't want to sound selfish but Just wondering if anyone knows the salary ranges and demand for pathologists?

I really am enjoying pathology at the medical school I'm at and I wouldn't mind doing lab work my entire life as a physician.

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[deleted314957]

It is great that you enjoy path. However, you should be aware that the pathology
exposure one receives in school is nothing like the day-to-day practice of path.
See if you can hang with one of paths a bit while at school to see just what they do.
With your perceived interest in being a test-tube shaker, you might consider
something like an MD/PhD or doing just CP only in academia().

 

[BU Pathology]

There is a medscape report about physician compensation that provides some of this information.

http://www.medscape.com/features/sl...rep_160413_mscpedit&uac=&impID=0&faf=1#page=1

There is also a recent article about how pathologists are satisfied with their compensation and careers (note that I am an author)
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2374289516661559

Medical school libraries typically carry the AAMC Faculty Salary Survey report which has a much more detailed breakdown. These figures will be academic compensation (salary plus bonus) which are typically lower than private practice.

As just one point of reference, the 25th percentile annual compensation for an anatomic pathologist with an academic appointment as an Instructor is more than $200,000. Postings that instructors earn $80,000 are best described as alternative facts.

Daniel Remick, M.D.
Chair and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center

 

[Granular]

Bear in mind that Dr. Remick's article is based on data from employed pathologists, rather than all people who have trained in pathology. If you pre-suppose that all who complete pathology training are gainfully employed, and conclude that of course you will be employed as a pathologist, maybe things don't look so bad. But that is a bad assumption. I'm sure many music school students think they will have careers as well-paid entertainers; and art students and theater students may also believe they will work doing what they love and make a good living at it. But many do not.

Ask Dr. Remick what he offers newly graduated fellows (title and pay). How long do they stay as instructors? What are they paid after 5 years (min, max, median)?

 

[gbwillner]

There is a medscape report about physician compensation that provides some of this information.

http://www.medscape.com/features/sl...rep_160413_mscpedit&uac=&impID=0&faf=1#page=1

There is also a recent article about how pathologists are satisfied with their compensation and careers (note that I am an author)
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2374289516661559

Medical school libraries typically carry the AAMC Faculty Salary Survey report which has a much more detailed breakdown. These figures will be academic compensation (salary plus bonus) which are typically lower than private practice.

As just one point of reference, the 25th percentile annual compensation for an anatomic pathologist with an academic appointment as an Instructor is more than $200,000. Postings that instructors earn $80,000 are best described as alternative facts.

Daniel Remick, M.D.
Chair and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center

I feel compelled to respond here, because I was an instructor who was paid less that $80K at an academic institution, and do not enjoy being called a liar (even less being compared to the Trump administration). Note I am not one who has complained about the job market and never tried to instill fear in prospective candidates.

Top academic institutions, like the ones I have been associated with, often promote OUTSTANDING candidates to the Instructor level before they can attain the rank of Assistant Professor. This helps the Jr faculty member in a variety of ways, such as allowing for a lot of protected research time and allowing them to get research publications and grant support before the tenure clock even begins ticking. These positions pay very little for several reasons; one, you are generally not creating a lot of RVUs, and 2, the institutions can do it because they are the top institutions and the top candidates will deal with it just to be there and be part of that (I was one of those suckers).

Other institutions may use that title differently, possibly by giving it to non-tenure track faculty, who basically have no protected time and are considered hired guns. I don't really know, because I've not seen this first hand, but that is the only way I could fathom salaries for these positions being >$200K at the 25th percentile, when that is much higher than what Asst Prof makes. Maybe Dr. Remick can tell us how his institution uses this title.

Note I did not ever complain about the salary and CHOSE to take that position. I could have gone elsewhere and instantly been Asst. Professor at a much higher salary. The the fact is I did start at under $80K. Don't feel bad for me though, it all turned out well for me.

 

[Thrombus]

Evidence is in: not fake news from Academia. Very fake news!

 

[yaah]

I think your original post indicates a confounding factor - you want to be in NYC. I am not an expert in the NYC job market but am guessing that most jobs there are academic or reference lab based, and salaries and benefits are unlikely to be high, particularly for new hires. The recent hires I have talked to with private NYC jobs (usually reference labs) have much less vacation and benefits than typical private jobs elsewhere in the country.

 

[postbacpremed87]

I think your original post indicates a confounding factor - you want to be in NYC. I am not an expert in the NYC job market but am guessing that most jobs there are academic or reference lab based, and salaries and benefits are unlikely to be high, particularly for new hires. The recent hires I have talked to with private NYC jobs (usually reference labs) have much less vacation and benefits than typical private jobs elsewhere in the country.

I was looking on JAMA jobs today and there were Pathology jobs listed (some private practice). They do exist! It seems Hematopathology and GI Path are highly desired.

 

[pathstudent]

There is a medscape report about physician compensation that provides some of this information.

http://www.medscape.com/features/sl...rep_160413_mscpedit&uac=&impID=0&faf=1#page=1

There is also a recent article about how pathologists are satisfied with their compensation and careers (note that I am an author)
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2374289516661559

Medical school libraries typically carry the AAMC Faculty Salary Survey report which has a much more detailed breakdown. These figures will be academic compensation (salary plus bonus) which are typically lower than private practice.

As just one point of reference, the 25th percentile annual compensation for an anatomic pathologist with an academic appointment as an Instructor is more than $200,000. Postings that instructors earn $80,000 are best described as alternative facts.

Daniel Remick, M.D.
Chair and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center

80k a year was the typical instructor salary where I trained. I know one woman who did it for two years. She was supposed to get 4 weeks off and only do service work 3 out of 4. Instead to help cover illness and gaps in the service, she was put on schedule 52 out of 52 weeks including covering subspecialities of which she had no subspecialized training in, and she was too scared/intimidated to say anything about it.

And this was at one of US News top hospitals in US.

 

[Thrombus]

80k a year was the typical instructor salary where I trained. I know one woman who did it for two years. She was supposed to get 4 weeks off and only do service work 3 out of 4. Instead to help cover illness and gaps in the service, she was put on schedule 52 out of 52 weeks including covering subspecialities of which she had no subspecialized training in, and she was too scared/intimidated to say anything about it.

And this was at one of US News top hospitals in US.

One can drop out of high school and find a much better deal collecting garbage!

Academia = Very very fake news!

 

[jupiterianvibe]

... Instead to help cover illness and gaps in the service, she was put on schedule 52 out of 52 weeks including covering subspecialities of which she had no subspecialized training in, and she was too scared/intimidated to say anything about it.

And this was at one of US News top hospitals in US.

FMG?

 

[BU Pathology]

I made a mistake and posted information from the wrong table. After reading the thoughtful replies, I went back to verify the data and found that the wrong compensation data was provided in the original post.

For MD instructors in 2016, the 25th percentile compensation was $70,000 and the mean was slightly above $148,000.

I apologize to those who were offended by posting the incorrect information.

Daniel Remick, M.D.
Chair and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center

 

[pathstudent]

FMG?

no. Amg from a top 10 us news med school. Superstar med student and resident.

She would have been desirable to any practice. Some people are just draw to follow the academic route while at the same time following the path of least resistance which is to stay on where you trained. Of course they low ballled her and didn't make her an asst prof without a couple years of economic and workload hazing.

 

[icpshootyz]

"the path of least resistance which is to stay on where you trained"

This is a common theme. Unless there are absolutely no other jobs out there, do no do this. You will receive the least amount of pay for the most amount of work, and you will be treated as a senior resident rather than a true peer. Go elsewhere where you're new and not known as a resident/fellow.

 

[pathslides]

"the path of least resistance which is to stay on where you trained"

This is a common theme. Unless there are absolutely no other jobs out there, do no do this. You will receive the least amount of pay for the most amount of work, and you will be treated as a senior resident rather than a true peer. Go elsewhere where you're new and not known as a resident/fellow.

Completely agree. A fresh new start is the best way to handle the transition of being on your own. Showing cases when in doubt is an important part for anyone in practice. If you are the at the same institution, when you need to show cases you will see how they perceive you as still a resident or fellow and give you grief, especially for a subspecialized place if you are signing out cases in a specialty you don't like (most new hires just do general and cover specialties for vacation). Yet if you show those same people any pathology outside their specialty they will have no idea and be totally clueless on even simple things, yet they give you crap if you don't know some stupid esoteric entity that has no clinical significance in their specialty. Academic institutions are some of the worst places to get jobs. They treat newly graduated peeps like crap. It boggles my mind why people would choose to work in academics.

 

[coroner]

It boggles my mind why people would choose to work in academics.

I'm not in academics, but there's a number of positives from my understanding. One of my former attendings who was well respected in his field left my institution at the end of my fellowship. He was moving on to academia somewhere else and I asked him why was he choosing to stay in academia because he could pretty much go anywhere. He gave a few of these reasons among others:

- Living in a big city: a lot of times big academia dominates the path market in metropolitan areas and it's often the best way to move to a big city vs hoping to
get lucky and get hired in the ever dwindling private groups with fewer staff, and which is even tougher without any connections.

- Tuition breaks: some places give free rides to academic faculty's family members. If you gotta put a couple of kids thru college, that can add up to hundreds of
thousands of dollars.

- Off service weeks/protected research time: Yes, they do have to publish and keep the grants flowing in. But, some places give faculty one out of every four
weeks off service excluding vacation. That be a pretty friendly schedule. I'm not referring to the malignant programs as mentioned above.

- Academic/intellectual environment: There are those who genuinely like being amongst leaders in their respective fields, enjoy research, teaching, etc.
There was a former prof where I trained who believed that private practice/surg path can be done by any scope monkey. But the real pathologists in our field
are the ones [in academia] who make scientific breakthroughs and discoveries.

 

[gbwillner]

I am no longer in academia, but there are a lot of benefits, and it suits certain types and personalities better than does private practice.

Academia may be for you if you:

• seek intellectual stimulation and value that above earnings
• want to be involved in significant research or research that involves funding for equipment and reagents
• don't want to be troubled by billing, running a business, maintaining contracts
• want to be (or be perceived to be) a leader in your specialty
• are interested in teaching/training for part of your time
• want protection from route work, focus not only on RVUs

Academia attracts all types. I would say it attracts some of the best and some of the worst in our field (there is room for both types). The Type-A ambitious; and the passive, "can't make eye-contact" types.

 

[jupiterianvibe]

no. Amg from a top 10 us news med school. Superstar med student and resident.

She would have been desirable to any practice. Some people are just draw to follow the academic route while at the same time following the path of least resistance which is to stay on where you trained. Of course they low ballled her and didn't make her an asst prof without a couple years of economic and workload hazing.

that adds up.
was she fugly? i'm seriously curious. i've never seen a looker get a **** deal. then again, ain't many lookers in pathology.

 

[coroner]

then again, ain't many lookers in pathology.

True...go to a derm conference and it's like night and day

 

[WEBB PINKERTON]

Most of us are horribly nearsighted, from years of looking into a scope, so who cares about looks?

 

[jupiterianvibe]

True...go to a derm conference and it's like night and day

thats like putting a one-legged blind monkey and usain bolt in the same sprint.

compare to something like internal and path is still relatively ugg.

i never knew women could have worse BO then men until i went into pathology. my lord.