This has become the most boring specialty forum on SDN

[octopusprime]

I miss the days of LADoc yore filled with controversial posts, complaining about the market, vaguely political discussions that teetered on locking a thread...
Let's start some discussion.

How much medical school debt are people dealing with?

People doing SAVE or PSLF or neither?

What kind of boring or not boring vacations are people doing this year?

Buying the current dip or waiting for the recession to kick in?

Gold/oil or AI/quantum/nuclear?

Bourbon or single malt?

If you own a Tesla will you keep it or move on? If you move on will you stay electric or revert back to FF or hybrid?

How responsible do we hold Kendrick Lamar for helping to usher back (a hopefully abbreviated era of) bootcut jeans?

Feel free to add some incendiary comments or discussion points.

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[coroner]

I miss the days of LADoc yore filled with controversial posts, complaining about the market, vaguely political discussions that teetered on locking a thread...

There was nothing vague about his political discussions. It was the conspiracy-theory, doomsday scenario b.s. If you're looking for those kind of "political discussions", you're better off going on X/Twitter...but it was entertaining!

Post in: 'Hyperinflationary collapse of Pathology (and healthcare in general)'

Jun 29, 2021

LA, I've been a big fan of yours for years now, but it looks like you've been steadily losing your marbles since the pandemic started, highlighted by your talk about crypto.

Yeah, but he made some really entertaining Covid-19 apocalyptic/conspiracy threads like these...gotta love ol' LA

Fiasco in the making? | Student Doctor Network Communities

Next act in the theater of the absurd: Tiger gets coughed on, now has COVID-19? | Student Doctor Network Communities

Convalescent plasma useless and high titer IgG non-protective? | Student Doctor...

• coroner

How much medical school debt are people dealing with?

30K remaining. Fixed interest rate of 2.75%. Plan on paying it off in the next year or two.

People doing SAVE or PSLF or neither?

No clue what this is, so: Neither

What kind of boring or not boring vacations are people doing this year?

I don't want to hear about other people's boring vacations taking their kids to Disneyworld, so I doubt they'd want to hear about mine...

Buying the current dip or waiting for the recession to kick in?

Bought the crypto dip

Gold/oil or AI/quantum/nuclear?

See above

Bourbon or single malt?

Buffalo trace

If you own a Tesla will you keep it or move on? If you move on will you stay electric or revert back to FF or hybrid?

Don't own electric. I would consider a self-charging (not plug-in) hybrid possibly in the future.

How responsible do we hold Kendrick Lamar for helping to usher back (a hopefully abbreviated era of) bootcut jeans?

Who?

- Agree that the path forum has gotten less interactive...but that is not entirely unusual or specific to pathology. Many internet forums, chat groups, etc. tend to wane after time. Especially, now compared to 20 yrs ago, mainly because of smartphones & social media. The people who used to browse/post on SDN 20 yrs ago that were pre-meds in their college dorm rooms, interns on overnight call, or path residents on a CP rotation, are now a generation who have TikTok, Insta, Tinder, X, Robinhood, DraftKings, etc. to compete for their time and attention.

 

[WEBB PINKERTON]

Job market is best it has been in decades due to pandemic. Everyone got jobs.

It would be interesting to here from LADoc now that his lab was taken over by labcorp. He didn't sound happy about it last year.

 

[WEBB PINKERTON]

The reason at SDN in general is no where near as popular anymore is because the older people left and the younger people all went to Reddit.
The pathology reddit is brimming with life and constant new posts.

No pathology forums are brimming with life. LOL. They all barely exist.

 

[KeratinPearls]

Everyone’s on Reddit now dude..

 

[HeyDalaron]

Everyone’s on Reddit now dude..

Nah, Reddit is lame. The young people are on Discord now.

 

[SunBakedTrash]

r/pathology is just WAMC threads from IMGs and low quality academic shytposting that dominates on xittter. The things discussed on SDN (in many forums besides this one) are much different and in my experience relevant more towards practicing community pathologists. I’m glad it’s over there so it doesn’t drown out conversation here.

How much medical school debt are people dealing with?

None, payed off. No name state school was worth it.

What kind of boring or not boring vacations are people doing this year?

Traveling with young children is terrible. Staycations have been my favorite.

Buying the current dip or waiting for the recession to kick in?

I’m holding. I don’t think this is a dip, I think it’s just the edge of a crater.

Gold/oil or AI/quantum/nuclear?

Gold. Even Costco is selling it now.

Bourbon or single malt?

Single malt.

If you own a Tesla will you keep it or move on? If you move on will you stay electric or revert back to FF or hybrid?

I still drive my Toyota from college. I saw one with a swastika keyed into its door in the physician garage so hard pass, even if i needed a car. Aren’t cybertrucks glued together? Too bad we can’t ask LADoc, he seemed like the type to buy one.

How responsible do we hold Kendrick Lamar for helping to usher back (a hopefully abbreviated era of) bootcut jeans?

The Lamar-Drake feud is almost old enough to drive.

Feel free to add some incendiary comments or discussion points.

RFK jr actually does look like someone put Mel Gibson in a microwave.

 

[Med Director New England]

Anyone know why LA Doc was banned ?

 

[Mace1370]

Was he banned? I thought he rode off into the sunset.

 

[KeratinPearls]

Yeah Webb seems to know about him. I don’t think he was banned.

Seems like his identity was gradually revealed. People were gradually getting clues to which city he was practicing in. His job was posted on pathoutlines which was brought up on here and his $700 per day locums job was also from his lab.

I’m guessing he just left because he was revealing too much info about himself. Webb found out who he was because he found his Facebook and knew his life story by scrolling through his posts lol.

 

[KeratinPearls]

r/pathology is just WAMC threads from IMGs and low quality academic shytposting that dominates on xittter. The things discussed on SDN (in many forums besides this one) are much different and in my experience relevant more towards practicing community pathologists. I’m glad it’s over there so it doesn’t drown out conversation here.


None, payed off. No name state school was worth it.

Traveling with young children is terrible. Staycations have been my favorite.

I’m holding. I don’t think this is a dip, I think it’s just the edge of a crater.

Gold. Even Costco is selling it now.

Single malt.

I still drive my Toyota from college. I saw one with a swastika keyed into its door in the physician garage so hard pass, even if i needed a car. Aren’t cybertrucks glued together? Too bad we can’t ask LADoc, he seemed like the type to buy one.

The Lamar-Drake feud is almost old enough to drive.

RFK jr actually does look like someone put Mel Gibson in a microwave.

I’m seeing more people flocking to pathology now for the “better lifestyle” posts.

Interested in surgical subspecialty with horrible lifestyle but now liking the lifestyle of pathology.

Internist and burned out, stressed out by toxic peers and patients…looking to go into pathology.

 

[SunBakedTrash]

Anyone know why LA Doc was banned ?

Some mod from another forum (premed, i think) came on once and said it was for harassment in their area after a bunch of warnings.

He posted a link to something once that had his facebook linked to it. It was a weird alt right page with Punisher logos everywhere and most of the posts removed from facebook as misinformation. 😂

 

[PathNeuroIMorFM]

Everyone’s on Reddit now dude..

Nah, Reddit is lame. The young people are on Discord now.

You're both kind of right. Discord is growing, but I reckon 80%+ of my classmates use Reddit. Those who don't still are shared major posts second hand from friends. Fingers crossed Discord starts to grow tho.

Regardless, we can all agree the younguns are *not* here.

 

[KeratinPearls]

You're both kind of right. Discord is growing, but I reckon 80%+ of my classmates use Reddit. Those who don't still are shared major posts second hand from friends. Fingers crossed Discord starts to grow tho.

Regardless, we can all agree the younguns are *not* here.

What’s the path forum for Discord?

 

[PathNeuroIMorFM]

What’s the path forum for Discord?

Th med student path applicant discord. I guess mods are trying to retain residents now for information sharing and support which I think is cool.

Join the Path Match Discord Server!

Check out the Path Match community on Discord - hang out with 2099 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

discord.com

 

[octopusprime]

I get it, SDN is the palm pilot of internet forums...I'm aware of the reddit forum, I still thought there'd be more activity here...if I was getting into a field as full of sexa- and septuagenarians as pathology, I'd query the people already there versus an echo chamber of millennial and gen Z newbs, unless it's simply for self-gratification.

 

[ScubaV]

As a Discord user, it's nice as a chat room and for voice/video calls with friends, but pretty horrible for anything else. Depending on how active a server is, good luck finding useful info or being able to follow discussions more than a few hours old. Reddit and forums are both good stores of knowledge and forums are the only way to have topical discussions spanning days or longer. But forums of any kind are declining. They're Internet 1.0 tech and they don't really have money-making potential.

 

[KeratinPearls]

As a Discord user, it's nice as a chat room and for voice/video calls with friends, but pretty horrible for anything else. Depending on how active a server is, good luck finding useful info or being able to follow discussions more than a few hours old. Reddit and forums are both good stores of knowledge and forums are the only way to have topical discussions spanning days or longer. But forums of any kind are declining. They're Internet 1.0 tech and they don't really have money-making potential.

I find Reddit awesome for any topic I’m interested in. Just use the search bar.

There are only 3 unfilled spots in the match today. You guys remember when there were like 55 unfilled spots in 2019? How times have changed.

 

[KeratinPearls]

I'm part of the younger ppl. For me, searching reddit is even more natural than searching google or chatgpt.

But pathology is getting undoubtedly more competitive. I'm seeing several threads on pathology reddit and the IMG reddit of people going unmatched. And even more ppl commenting going unmatched in path.

And on the interview trail, PD's have commented on how this is cycle they've never before gotten applicants with such insanely high stats

ultimately, some of us would rather sacrifice high salary in order to have some quiet time. Patients are tough man. Many are nice. But it takes a few angry ones to ruin your day. The documentation is too much. And the multi-tasking required is just too much.

Even though, pathology collections isn't bad. We'd need better unionization and people not willing to accept the ****ty pay positions to increase salary

Last year I know a Midwestern program got like 500 applications for 4 spots.

I’m wondering if there’s a trend among med students for a better lifestyle nowadays.

 

[KeratinPearls]

…. but the one thing path doesn't have is the insane emotional drain.

Just in residency and fellowship but yeah I don’t got to deal with a lot of BS, which is clinical medicine. It’s just me and my slides and colleagues.

 

[KeratinPearls]

I'm part of the younger ppl. For me, searching reddit is even more natural than searching google or chatgpt.

But pathology is getting undoubtedly more competitive. I'm seeing several threads on pathology reddit and the IMG reddit of people going unmatched. And even more ppl commenting going unmatched in path.

And on the interview trail, PD's have commented on how this is cycle they've never before gotten applicants with such insanely high stats

ultimately, some of us would rather sacrifice high salary in order to have some quiet time. Patients are tough man. Many are nice. But it takes a few angry ones to ruin your day. The documentation is too much. And the multi-tasking required is just too much.

Even though, pathology collections isn't bad. We'd need better unionization and people not willing to accept the ****ty pay positions to increase salary

A union would be nice for sure. I propose:

1. Cap on residency spots to prevent overtraining which will allow for higher salaries as we limit the supply of pathologists and thus greatly improve the quality of pathologists. No more $200,000 -$250,000 starting salaries and 5 - 7 years to partnership. No underperforming programs. Pathology will be competitive and the best med students will flock to Path improving our reputation amongst colleagues. Marginal candidates will have to apply elsewhere.

Over the years I’ve seen or heard of too many stories of incompetent pathologists in the workforce.

No more exploitation by academic institutions who take advantage of younger pathologists to do high volume work for primary care level pay. Same goes for private practice partners and corporations that take advantage of juniors pathologists.

More options for jobs for those who want to live closer to large cities. Many training programs near larger cities result in limited numbers of jobs for graduating trainees who are forced to take low paying jobs due to lack of options.

2. Signout privileges during residency which will allow for more confidence and independence as an attending and thus higher starting salaries as one is able to “hit the ground running” and sign out more cases independently like a real graduate should.

 

[octopusprime]

That explains why PM&R and psych is competitive now.
In my class, after Gen surg rotation, we had so many switch to psych and these are all the top students in my class.

I was also set on gen surg, and after the rotation, I ran to pathology, did 4 auditions and would never trade my pathology match for anything else in the world now. Path has its own stress and liability but the one thing path doesn't have is the insane emotional drain.

I think that's fairly common, current application numbers aside. I initially wanted to do surgery but ran to path after my first rotation; plenty of others I know went from surg to anesthesia and IM specialties.
Psych is a great field for entrepreneurs but man that's a really challenging field--it's 100% patients and lots of talking. Unless you set up a primo couture practice in Manhattan or tailor your service to a very specific patient population. Certainly is gratifying though--I've been through a lot of psyche stuff with family members and finding a good psyche that's just not pushing pills is challenging, but there's a HUGE demand now that psyche issues are more socially open and the stigma is not what it was 50 yrs ago.

 

[KeratinPearls]

Talked with a friend today and he told me they’ve been looking for a pathologist for over a year now. I heard the same from another pathologist in the area. He even told me their academically owned community hospital went to a RVU setup to retain pathologists as other pathologists have been quitting.

Damn good salary with 7 weeks vacation for a super chill job.

Whoever is making or taking these 250/year jobs in academics is a fool.

 

[coroner]

Damn good salary with 7 weeks vacation for a super chill job.

What is "damn good"? (If the friend told you the amount which I assume they did if they told you the vacay)

 

[mike-sheree]

Talked with a friend today and he told me they’ve been looking for a pathologist for over a year now. I heard the same from another pathologist in the area. He even told me their academically owned community hospital went to a RVU setup to retain pathologists as other pathologists have been quitting.

Damn good salary with 7 weeks vacation for a super chill job.

Whoever is making or taking these 250/year jobs in academics is a fool.

Whoever is taking a job in academia is a fool. Not a nice place to be unless you like being underpaid and writing papers about rat tail pathology.

 

[KeratinPearls]

Whoever is taking a job in academia is a fool. Not a nice place to be unless you like being underpaid and writing papers about rat tail pathology.

Agree. I think more of this should be discussed on here. I’d love to see academic institutions be bled dry. Most people I’ve met in academic do not even do any meaningful research. I mean like “case reports”.

They have billions of dollars and pay pathologists chump change. The chairs will absolutely not pay you more for the heavy workload either. I have serious disdain for academic institutions especially those doing the hiring (not the good kind hearted ones that actually teach).

Hey you want to work here? How about you do a fellowship first (an extra year of cheap labor that you will provide to them).

I’ve seen academics with piles of trays in their office while the senior paths, who do the hiring, just have the “easy life” and go home by 5-6 pm. The juniors paths do all the late night frozens and the brunt of the work.

Let’s get real. Most docs are wussies and they take these low paying jobs because most docs have no spine and don’t stand up for themselves. I hate to see it. Most academic institutions would collapse if it weren’t for these obedient poor souls that take these low paying high volume jobs. We’ve been brainwashed during training to be obedient unfortunately.

Imagine how much these academic centers were paying paths when the job market was garbage? Like 150-200k a year I’m guessing as I was offered 200K in private few years back (academics of course pays less).

Someone brought up the concept of unions for pathologists. That would be terrific.

 

[SunBakedTrash]

I think academics could be a sweet gig if you’re into something niche like blood banking or renal path. It’s obvious you are not in it for money and the idea of signing out a crap load of meat including cytology and neuro frozens isn’t appealing to everyone. I know people in academics who like it.

 

[KeratinPearls]

It’s obvious you are not in it for money …

Yeah these are the types academic institutions love. Easily exploitable. Pile them with a bunch of work. Get going obedient slave.

 

[ChicagoPath]

Agree. I think more of this should be discussed on here. I’d love to see academic institutions be bled dry. Most people I’ve met in academic do not even do any meaningful research. I mean like “case reports”.

They have billions of dollars and pay pathologists chump change. The chairs will absolutely not pay you more for the heavy workload either. I have serious disdain for academic institutions especially those doing the hiring (not the good kind hearted ones that actually teach).

Hey you want to work here? How about you do a fellowship first (an extra year of cheap labor that you will provide to them).

I’ve seen academics with piles of trays in their office while the senior paths, who do the hiring, just have the “easy life” and go home by 5-6 pm. The juniors paths do all the late night frozens and the brunt of the work.

Let’s get real. Most docs are wussies and they take these low paying jobs because most docs have no spine and don’t stand up for themselves. I hate to see it. Most academic institutions would collapse if it weren’t for these obedient poor souls that take these low paying high volume jobs. We’ve been brainwashed during training to be obedient unfortunately.

Imagine how much these academic centers were paying paths when the job market was garbage? Like 150-200k a year I’m guessing as I was offered 200K in private few years back (academics of course pays less).

Someone brought up the concept of unions for pathologists. That would be terrific.

Saw a well known academic gi pathologist (author of a book) post on X that she found out her fellow was offered a higher salary than her lol. She’s no longer a pathologist.

An “academic" position is nothing more than a clinical job with significantly substandard pay and the illusion of prestige.

 

[MeningiomaAndCoffee]

Have you all seen marithealth.com community contributed salaries?
I see that nearly all of them are academic w/ a few private, self owned, or single specialty nonacademic practice.
And the salary is very skewed towards the lower end.

any thoughts on why the academic people seem to contribute their salaries online vs. nonacademic people?

 

[Alteran]

Agree. I think more of this should be discussed on here. I’d love to see academic institutions be bled dry. Most people I’ve met in academic do not even do any meaningful research. I mean like “case reports”.

They have billions of dollars and pay pathologists chump change. The chairs will absolutely not pay you more for the heavy workload either. I have serious disdain for academic institutions especially those doing the hiring (not the good kind hearted ones that actually teach).

Hey you want to work here? How about you do a fellowship first (an extra year of cheap labor that you will provide to them).

I’ve seen academics with piles of trays in their office while the senior paths, who do the hiring, just have the “easy life” and go home by 5-6 pm. The juniors paths do all the late night frozens and the brunt of the work.

Let’s get real. Most docs are wussies and they take these low paying jobs because most docs have no spine and don’t stand up for themselves. I hate to see it. Most academic institutions would collapse if it weren’t for these obedient poor souls that take these low paying high volume jobs. We’ve been brainwashed during training to be obedient unfortunately.

Imagine how much these academic centers were paying paths when the job market was garbage? Like 150-200k a year I’m guessing as I was offered 200K in private few years back (academics of course pays less).

Someone brought up the concept of unions for pathologists. That would be terrific.

Academics operates under a whole different set of economic principles than private practice. In academics, though it’s becoming increasingly like private practice, still has some key differences, primarily in overhead expenses. Faculty have their healthcare and benefits paid out of the academic multidisciplinary practice (be it either the affiliated university) or academic practice itself. They also don’t have to buy equipment or rent office space - that’s taken care of for them. In addition, they or the department itself is subsidized by the institution itself which offsets their lack of productivity in RVUs. All that said, it can’t totally offset deadweight. I am also noticing that some, not all, academic departments are learning to compete with private practice by better paying their high-producers. We tried to recruit a sub specialist from academics a few years ago, but this individual wanted some astronomical salary from us which matched their current salary. Turns out this pathologist (who was of mid-level academic rank), through the department and with the blessing of the chair, had an outreach side gig processed and billed by the department which more than doubled their base academic salary. So I guess if you have a business mindset in academics, you can actually do pretty well - but your department has to be run by an equally savvy chair.

Private practice is obviously different. There are no subsidies and plenty of overhead. You eat what you kill. And, I’ve said this many times before on this forum, if you want to pocket no less than $350K before taxes in the real world, you have to bill at least $500K so that you don’t become a net loss to the practice. At an average of $110/case professional reimbursement, that works out to about 20 cases/day averaged out across all work days for the year. Which of course means that when vacation coverage is put in, you’ll have to be crunching closer to 30 cases/day on average to make that happen. While we don’t select for pathologists who are incapable of doing 30 cases/day, many groups do and then wonder why their finances are all goofy.

 

[coroner]

Whoever is taking a job in academia is a fool.

I’d love to see academic institutions be bled dry.

An “academic" position is nothing more than a clinical job with significantly substandard pay and the illusion of prestige.

Lot of academic hate on here. Did anyone here have an abusive attending? 😜

When I was finishing training and interviewing for jobs, I had no desire to go into academics used to wonder why certain pathologists did. I asked one of my attendings who was well known in his field and could probably go anywhere why he chose to enter and stay in academia. He shared his reasons and along with others I've talked with, their perspective made me realize why some people choose that career track:
1. The "academic" part of academic - They genuinely like being in higher places of learning with research and teaching. And, for more reputable institutions, the prestige part. It's almost unheard of for a pathologist who spent their entire career in community practice to become famous and an internationally recognized leader in their respective field. Some people genuinely want to pursue this, others don't, and academics is the way.
2. Comfort/convenience - They trained at that institution, their spouse may have a job there and kids go to school there and are situated and familiar with it, like it, and want to remain there. Or maybe they couldn't get a job and academics was their fallback.
3. City life - Most academic locations are in medium to large metropolitan areas and some people want to be in NYC, LA, Chicago, etc. for the city lifestyle, access to amenities, large airports with international flights, Michelin rated restaurants, shopping, performing arts, etc., because not everyone wants to "go rural", like Webb.
4. Fringe benefits - Immediate family members being able to attend the university tuition-free (my former attending put his two kids through undergrad on a full ride). Protected "research" time which they can take extra PTO, having residents, post-docs to scut-work, etc.
These reasons may not apply to everyone, but some do.

Side note: It's funny how this thread started as an open call to spice things up and it delved back into the job market...lol

 

[SunBakedTrash]

Side note: It's funny how this thread started as an open call to spice things up and it delved back into the job market...lol

Dumping on pathology was funny for like 10 years but now it’s just agonizing to rehash the same crap over and over again. The people miserable in pathology really should just switch specialties at this point since it will never be better than it is now and they might as well find some meaning in what they do. They won’t, however. They will continue to come here and use us as free therapy. It really is no wonder Yaah and the others left.

 

[cmz]

Saw a well known academic gi pathologist (author of a book) post on X that she found out her fellow was offered a higher salary than her lol. She’s no longer a pathologist.

An “academic" position is nothing more than a clinical job with significantly substandard pay and the illusion of prestige.

Is that the same academic GI pathologist that runs a side scam as a "personal coach"?

Why doesn't the academic GI pathologist market themselves and find a better paying job? "You don't know what it's like out there! I've worked in the private sector. They expect results."

 

[mike-sheree]

Is that the same academic GI pathologist that runs a side scam as a "personal coach"?

Why doesn't the academic GI pathologist market themselves and find a better paying job? "You don't know what it's like out there! I've worked in the private sector. They expect results."

And they would laugh at the concept of 30 cases a day as “being busy”.

 

[octopusprime]

Dumping on pathology was funny for like 10 years but now it’s just agonizing to rehash the same crap over and over again. The people miserable in pathology really should just switch specialties at this point since it will never be better than it is now and they might as well find some meaning in what they do. They won’t, however. They will continue to come here and use us as free therapy. It really is no wonder Yaah and the others left.

The point of this thread wasn't to spice things up per se [the question list was pretty benign save the last line made in jest], just that there's no regular discussion, productive or otherwise. Like others have said most of the younger crowd seems to have moved to other avenues of discussion/media... Reddit or Substack or whatever... and the [mostly] GenX'ers that used to post more frequently are busy with life, job, family, investing, vacation, whatever.

While the job market opinions are most acutely relevant to those looking for jobs (which is mostly new grads) the job market is still relevant to the field as a whole. There's less complaining when things are good, but I wouldn't credit our lobbying efforts for the current job market; in fact I'd say the demand is only a result of them not being able to implement their plans to significantly increase training spots. This is actually an honest discussion point--what factors played or play the biggest role in the current job market trends... COVID era related? Increased retirements? Maintenance of training numbers while overall specimen volume increases? Less interest in the field? Generational differences making it harder to find pathologists willing to work in rural or flyover territory? The easy answer is some combination of all these things, and decidedly NOT massive pay increases. As anyone in medicine can attest, reimbursements are always on a downward trajectory, which is an advocacy issue for every single state pathology society: combatting regional reimbursement rates and coding denials.

Being out in practice for 10-15 yrs makes one loathe to start the process over unless push comes to shove, which I guess is why it's relevant to hear from those with perspective, so long as it's genuine. Perspective alone doesn't change reality, but like anything that requires votes & voices, a lack of perspective can lead to deference to the status quo and complacency.

 

[KeratinPearls]

Dumping on pathology was funny for like 10 years but now it’s just agonizing to rehash the same crap over and over again. The people miserable in pathology really should just switch specialties at this point since it will never be better than it is now and they might as well find some meaning in what they do. They won’t, however. They will continue to come here and use us as free therapy. It really is no wonder Yaah and the others left.

Yaah is probably a nice guy in real life and a good pathologist. He wanted to promote pathology, which is fine, but at that time he was trying to paint a rosy picture of pathology when the job market was hot garbage.

Pathology might have had one of the worst job markets in medicine for years.

He wasn’t speaking the truth. The job market was nothing like it’s now. I called him out on it. Med students need to know the truth of what they are getting into. I had personal experience looking for jobs (there were few where I wanted to live) and had very few options.

This was also reiterated by many in other forums and here on SDN and also through my own colleagues.

 

[Med Director New England]

Job market is still not to rosy

A posted job that isn’t filled for 6 months or even years - yet the group still gets by without using locums or diverting work. Is this really a need ? At least 1/2 the jobs on PO in academia are like this

Still hard to find anything decent within 100 miles of the metro areas with tons of trainees

I could go on…

 

[KeratinPearls]

Job market is still not to rosy

A posted job that isn’t filled for 6 months or even years - yet the group still gets by without using locums or diverting work. Is this really a need ? At least 1/2 the jobs on PO in academia are like this

Still hard to find anything decent within 100 miles of the metro areas with tons of trainees

I could go on…

I don’t think there’s a shortage but some hospitals still have problems finding someone. One friend at a suburb one hour from a large city can’t hire anyone despite many interviews. He told me people don’t want to live in the “middle of nowhere” although it’s not a bad suburb at all.

I think the Northeast is saturated though.

 

[coroner]

It really is no wonder Yaah and the others left.

Yaah is probably a nice guy in real life and a good pathologist...

Yaah was great as one of the OG's of the path forum. A well-respected and intelligent pathologist who trained at a top 10-20 program. Never one to back down from a fight, but he did wear the tin foil hate every now and then. Quick on the draw to impugn those who challenged the status quo, yet rarely showing deference. His epic rants were only eclipsed by his alacrity of the merits and outlook of our field despite many other members' views. As life happens for many of use, he did get married, have kids, and move on. That, as well as the repetitive themes that were brought up could lead anyone to think that they have contributed all they could and it's up for people to choose to do what they wish with that perspective and let the torch be borne by the next generation. This led to a state of lassitude until he faded into "Bolivian". Ultimately though, he was consumed by his own ego...

 

[KeratinPearls]

Being out in practice for 10-15 yrs makes one loathe to start the process over unless push comes to shove, which I guess is why it's relevant to hear from those with perspective, so long as it's genuine. Perspective alone doesn't change reality, but like anything that requires votes & voices, a lack of perspective can lead to deference to the status quo and complacency.

Well said. People don't like it when you go against the grain and speak up. There are plenty of positives in pathology as well (you can get a chill job, have time to surf SDN, no call, easier lifestyle than any other field in medicine, no high stress moments except for maybe frozens but everything gets better with experience).