• Practice your interview with the new SDN AI Interview Coach. Choose a school, answer by voice or typing, and receive a personalized feedback report. Available now to all SDN members. Try the AI Interview Coach.

This year's unfilled positions

Started by BlondeDocteur
Physicians and veterinarians: Turn your expertise into action! Explore CDC’s Epidemiology Elective Program and Epidemic Intelligence Service today.
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
icpshootyz said:
My residency program in Boston had 32 residents (plus around 12 fellows) and 0 PA's for 55K surgicals a year. My private group has 4 fully trained PA's that do all the grossing for approximately the same number of surgicals.
Click to expand...

There are no doubt programs that exist that game the system to their advantage. However, I think the notion that there are program directors out there lining their pockets off the gme gravy train has been debunked. Are there ways to financially benefit your institution by hiring more residents than necessary? Probably. Are the financial incentives so easy to abuse that the entire system has milked it to the point there is a large oversupply of trainees? Very doubtful. If there are, that's not just a path issue. That's going to be abused everywhere.

I think bad assumptions on retirement age, unknowns in healthcare regs, and better than anticipated gains in productivity are the reasons the market is tight. The notion that there is some academic / large lab conspiracy to keep the labor supply up is pretty far out there.
 
turtle1966 said:
The matter of "per resident" pecuniary benefit to a training program is a silly distraction to debate about oversupply.
Click to expand...

It's very relevant to debates about perverse incentives. Since GME dollars cover only a fraction of a resident's salary (roughly half), and none of the benefits and malpractice insurance, it's silly to argue that market oversupply is due to pathology departments' addiction to free government cash.

"Dollar amount" per resident is not a good measure of benefits that Academics derive from residents. The pattern of work in academic centers are geared up for publishing and professional glory of those in tenure track and the residents are an essential integral part of that structure. Try giving your residents a collective vacation for a month and see how well your department will function. Academic centers (except for Mayo and Cleveland Clinics and the likes) are not set up for service work and need cheap resident labor. I laugh when I see the case volume and number of staff at some of the university centers.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Academia has other incentives besides profit. Education is costly and time-intensive. Research is usually costly and time-intensive, except when something marketable or game-changing comes out of it. Trainees add inefficiency to the system. I know personally there is one weekend a year when no residents work in any of our hospitals (in my former surgery residency). The attendings manage miraculously well without us.

What Dr. Remick should have addressed is why there is such a wide divergence in perception of job market between him and us. One of us must be in a state of denial. For us in private practice, we know and feel the effect of over-supply daily.
Click to expand...

It's great to have a department chair participating on this board. I would be really interested to hear how many strings and whatnot he has to pull to place his graduates-- what the networking is like from his end, rather than the candidates'.
 
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
BlondeDocteur said:
It's great to have a department chair participating on this board. I would be really interested to hear how many strings and whatnot he has to pull to place his graduates-- what the networking is like from his end, rather than the candidates'.
Click to expand...

I think it's safe to say we'd ALL like to hear more about this.
 
I would be glad to talk about the placement of our residents and fellows. This information is posted on our website:
http://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm-pathology/residency-program/resident-fellow-graduates-2008-2014-3/

Similar to most current residents, our residents typically do a one year fellowship. All of our residents have been able to secure fellowships. Our fellows all move on to full time employment, again shown on our website.

In terms of pulling strings, our department has not found that to be necessary. Of course we write letters of reference and take phone calls to discuss our trainees, but that is typical employment and would not be considered pulling strings.

At national meetings I ask program directors and fellowship directors if any of their trainees are unemployed. None of us have a trainee who cannot find a job. I have heard of 2 or 3 trainees who are under-employed, i.e. only working part time when they wish to work full time. In these situations the spouse could not relocate so the pathology spouse took part time work.
 
Last edited:
BU Pathology said:
Our fellows all move on to full time employment, again shown on our website.
Click to expand...

Ok, I am trying to fully understand this (as opposed to simply trying to challenge you). I followed your website link. There are 23 people listed . Of these, I only see 5 people who have practicing pathologist positions listed in the "direction after graduation" column. 15 people have only fellowship positions listed in this column. 1 person "moved back" to another country, 1 person transferred after PGY-1 and 1 person has nothing in this column. Is there a separate link with more information?
 
Tissue issue said:
Me again. I think I see what you're referring to- you're saying that your cyto fellows found jobs.
Click to expand...

I am confused. How do you read this list?

1-Is the list all inclusive of all trainees (residents and fellows) since 2008 (the earliest graduation date in the list).
2-One went into Air Force, one to Canada and only two in US private practice and they are from 2009 and 2010.​

Although laudable, I question the pertinence of the list. On the negative side, I wonder how low tier program graduates would have fared.

Why would an INFORMAL poll of PDs be any more credible that the posts in SDN?
 
Last edited:
I went to your Linked In link. She's Chief of Pathology at a company that describes itself thusly:

"The Vitalité Health Network has its headquarters in Bathurst, New Brunswick and operates with an annual budget of nearly $660 million. We provide health care and services to nearly 250,000 people. Our team is made up of over 7,600 employees and nearly 470 physicians, 227 of whom are specialists, and 1,200 volunteers.

Vitalité Health Network has eleven hospitals (including four delivering primary, secondary or tertiary care), a psychiatric hospital centre, and six community facilities. We have four addiction treatment centres, seven health centres, two community health centres, and one health clinic. We also have ten mental health centres, twelve offices for public health, eight sexual health centres, and eleven units for the Extra-Mural Program, which specializes in home care. We also receive financial support from nine foundations."

Sounds like a decent opportunity to me, if you're OK with cold and fog.
 
Tissue issue said:
Ok, I am trying to fully understand this (as opposed to simply trying to challenge you). I followed your website link. There are 23 people listed . Of these, I only see 5 people who have practicing pathologist positions listed in the "direction after graduation" column. 15 people have only fellowship positions listed in this column. 1 person "moved back" to another country, 1 person transferred after PGY-1 and 1 person has nothing in this column. Is there a separate link with more information?
Click to expand...

I agree, it would be nice to see where the residents ended up after their fellowships. Programs should track this, and be able to give it to applicants. I know my old residency program does.
 
Tiki said:
I agree, it would be nice to see where the residents ended up after their fellowships. Programs should track this, and be able to give it to applicants. I know my old residency program does.
Click to expand...

A handful of places did this on the interview trail (and not only the biggest names). I have several sheets of 5+ years' worth of resident classes and exactly where they are now. The ones completely finished with training were almost without exception employed (a few J1-type people went back to their country of origin, etc). With the job market fears this kind of information feels very unique to pathology (in other specialties programs like to brag about the prestigious fellowships their grads get; subsequent employment is I suppose taken for granted). But I personally found it reassuring and transparent.
 
2021Doctor said:
One of the cytopath fellows took a job in Edmundston New Brunswick:
http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/nalini-balgobin-marino/82/38a/589

Edmundston is a town of 16000 people with brutal weather.
Check out the latest forecast:
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/canada/new-brunswick/edmundston

Obviously an indicator of a great job market when AP/CP and cytopath fellowship trained docs are going ot Edmundston.
Click to expand...

Edmunston is a crap hole.

The thing that you can't really experience until you go there is the smell of the town. It has this...sulphurous rankness.
 
One of the residents is listed as moved back to Santiago, Chile: Paula Navarro Alvarez
However she graduated residency in 2012 and is currently a surgpath fellow at Penn State:
http://www.pennstatehershey.org/web...taillist/_INSTANCE_r9X6/detail/101483/2994223

Is this her second fellowship? Is she doing a third fellowship or does he have a job?
Why was she listed as Moved back to Santiago Chile?
How many of the BU Pathology grads are doing multiple fellowships and why?
 
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
2121115 said:
You all are comparing apples to oranges. It isn't about efficiency it is about $$$, and in an academic center the two are not necessarily related (as they are in real life). A PA costs the department salary and benefits, whereas a resident does not (government/GME funded). The business managers in an academic department could care less if having residents means a longer workday for the attendings or a longer turn around time. Those specimens are not going anywhere (academic centers are a captive audience, all specimens stay in house) so there is no potential to lose $$ by having worse service/longer turnaround time. And the attendings are plug-and-play (if you quit because you're day is too long, they just hire the next junior attending in line, and both of you already generate way more AP revenue than you get paid).
Click to expand...

This.

I, too, have heard tell of a magical land where selfless programs train residents out of pure altruism and love of Hippocrates and at an economic loss, no less!, but I've yet to find it on the map. I've heard it's located where you can also get American-style, spare-no-expense, cradle-to-grave medical care, but at NHS provider salaries, so maybe it's just around the corner. Imagine!

Seriously, efficiency plays NO role in what are essentially indentured-servitude arrangements. The antebellum South was notoriously inefficient and the planters had no end of complaints about their labor costs, but funny how it took a war to pry the expensive slaves out of their cold dead hands.
 
BlondeDocteur said:
I went to your Linked In link. She's Chief of Pathology at a company that describes itself thusly:

"The Vitalité Health Network has its headquarters in Bathurst, New Brunswick and operates with an annual budget of nearly $660 million. We provide health care and services to nearly 250,000 people. Our team is made up of over 7,600 employees and nearly 470 physicians, 227 of whom are specialists, and 1,200 volunteers.

Vitalité Health Network has eleven hospitals (including four delivering primary, secondary or tertiary care), a psychiatric hospital centre, and six community facilities. We have four addiction treatment centres, seven health centres, two community health centres, and one health clinic. We also have ten mental health centres, twelve offices for public health, eight sexual health centres, and eleven units for the Extra-Mural Program, which specializes in home care. We also receive financial support from nine foundations."

Sounds like a decent opportunity to me, if you're OK with cold and fog.
Click to expand...

She is in Edmundston. A frigid town of 16000. Will you be willing to take a job in a remote cold Canadian town of less than 20000 people where the main industry is timber? You think there are many good jobs for spouses in that town? You think there might be difficulty living in a town that is 95% French speaking?
 
We obviously have no idea about her inclinations, family situation, etc. But she's 44 years old, an American IMG, who bounced around through a lot of partially completed training. I don't want to pick on her-- more power to you, Nalini, if you ever google yourself and find this thread-- but perhaps she didn't have the most compelling resume in the pile.
 
BlondeDocteur said:
We obviously have no idea about her inclinations, family situation, etc. But she's 44 years old, an American IMG, who bounced around through a lot of partially completed training. I don't want to pick on her-- more power to you, Nalini, if you ever google yourself and find this thread-- but perhaps she didn't have the most compelling resume in the pile.
Click to expand...

That being said, I bet she gets paid more than most American pathologists.
 
Tiki said:
I agree, it would be nice to see where the residents ended up after their fellowships. Programs should track this, and be able to give it to applicants. I know my old residency program does.
Click to expand...

BlondeDocteur said:
A handful of places did this on the interview trail (and not only the biggest names). I have several sheets of 5+ years' worth of resident classes and exactly where they are now. The ones completely finished with training were almost without exception employed (a few J1-type people went back to their country of origin, etc). With the job market fears this kind of information feels very unique to pathology (in other specialties programs like to brag about the prestigious fellowships their grads get; subsequent employment is I suppose taken for granted). But I personally found it reassuring and transparent.
Click to expand...

turtle1966 said:
I would like to suggest that Program Directors make available a list of residents leaving their programs with types of job(s) obtained. The list should include the last 5 years as well. The list does not have to include the names, however, should be specific enough to be verified in this Board.

This should give a true picture of job market for the newly minted pathologists.
Click to expand...


I am for a sunshine policy, i.e., proactive, inform fully the residency candidates of past records and current job prospects. Pathology is unique in job prospects; ergo, justify this policy. Time when PDs could hide data and obfuscate the reality is over.

Suntanned guys and gals are better decision makers and happier.
 
BlondeDocteur said:
We obviously have no idea about her inclinations, family situation, etc. But she's 44 years old, an American IMG, who bounced around through a lot of partially completed training. I don't want to pick on her-- more power to you, Nalini, if you ever google yourself and find this thread-- but perhaps she didn't have the most compelling resume in the pile.
Click to expand...

Does an internist (or any physician in any another specialty other than pathology) need to go to a such undesirable part in Canada to find a job? The answer is: No. I know a lot of visa needing IMG average IM and FM residents who found jobs early in the last year of their training in much better locations and with good compensation and benefits (many with 200K+)- I am not talking about top notch residents from MGH or JH, but your average resident with next to nothing on their resumes in terms of experience / research / leadership etc...

What is a compelling resume? a long list of useless publications that nobody will ever read ? Community practices do not even look at that. They do not correlate by any means with a candidate's diagnostic skills or personality. Academia is a different story but again it is not everybody's cup of tea.

In a healthy job market every board certified physician should be able to find work relatively easily. If this is not the case, then there is a serious problem that needs to be identified.
 
amfas83 said:
Does an internist (or any physician in any another specialty other than pathology) need to go to a such undesirable part in Canada to find a job? The answer is: No. I know a lot of visa needing IMG average IM and FM residents who found jobs early in the last year of their training in much better locations and with good compensation and benefits (many with 200K+)- I am not talking about top notch residents from MGH or JH, but your average resident with next to nothing on their resumes in terms of experience / research / leadership etc...

What is a compelling resume? a long list of useless publications that nobody will ever read ? Community practices do not even look at that. They do not correlate by any means with a candidate's diagnostic skills or personality. Academia is a different story but again it is not everybody's cup of tea.

In a healthy job market every board certified physician should be able to find work relatively easily. If this is not the case, then there is a serious problem that needs to be identified.
Click to expand...

Watch out! You run the risk of being labeled "entitlement-minded"
 
I'll answer the questions regarding Dr. Wang and Dr. Navarro (and multiple others)...fellowship merry go round....can't find work.
 
2021Doctor said:
She is in Edmundston. A frigid town of 16000. Will you be willing to take a job in a remote cold Canadian town of less than 20000 people where the main industry is timber? You think there are many good jobs for spouses in that town? You think there might be difficulty living in a town that is 95% French speaking?
Click to expand...

You're kidding right? This kind of logic is why most of the attendings here make fun of the opinions expressed on this board. This kind of nonsensical projection of "feelings" about where one person may or may not be happy, fulfilled, and productive is just the type of bullsh*t that people who do not have reality on their side (and know it) bring to an argument. It's horrible reasoning, brings no new useful data to the conversation, and is just plain d*ckish. For my part, I'd love a job in a wintery small town surrounded by timber. Sounds like my idea of going back to where I grew up, since that's exactly what it would be. The opportunity to learn another language in the bargain would be a selling point too. I would imagine that that would also be looked at as an opportunity to a lot of people who went into medicine for their love of learning and not their love of money and unearned, unquestioned, adulation from everyone they interact with.

It also serves to reinforce the tendency of those who DO have jobs that they like to ignore and/or belittle those who may or may not be having trouble finding employment that they are satisfied with. I would not be surprised, for example, if a Dr with your towering, awe inspiring skill to bring irrelevant nonsense to a question may have trouble finding a job. I'm vaguely aware that the job market may not be perfect. But I'm not at all aware of any person I'd trust on this board to explain to me what color means go on a stoplight, let alone what problems actually exist in the job market.
 
Additionally, looks like she trained in Ireland for much of her academic career. Maybe, just maybe, not every single person who has ever heard of the US bends their entire life toward living and working in the US. Maybe she preferred the health care system in Ireland and was happy to go to a place with a similar system. Maybe she wanted to live in a country where she wouldn't have to worry about her kids being gunned down in school and having the response be "lets have more guns". Maybe she wanted to live in a country that doesn't spend more than the entire rest of the developed world combined on the sole purpose of killing or arresting brown people. Maybe she is a hockey fan. Maybe she prefers small towns, Cork certainly isn't HUGE after all. Maybe she met the group she was going to work with, loved them and the work environment and all other considerations became secondary. For every fantasy we can come up with to guarantee she's just got to be miserable because she isn't practicing in a temperate big city in 'Murca we can come up with just as many opposite ones.
 
BrainPathology said:
Additionally, looks like she trained in Ireland for much of her academic career. Maybe, just maybe, not every single person who has ever heard of the US bends their entire life toward living and working in the US. Maybe she preferred the health care system in Ireland and was happy to go to a place with a similar system. Maybe she wanted to live in a country where she wouldn't have to worry about her kids being gunned down in school and having the response be "lets have more guns". Maybe she wanted to live in a country that doesn't spend more than the entire rest of the developed world combined on the sole purpose of killing or arresting brown people. Maybe she is a hockey fan. Maybe she prefers small towns, Cork certainly isn't HUGE after all. Maybe she met the group she was going to work with, loved them and the work environment and all other considerations became secondary. For every fantasy we can come up with to guarantee she's just got to be miserable because she isn't practicing in a temperate big city in 'Murca we can come up with just as many opposite ones.
Click to expand...

Brain Pathology used Reality Check. It's super effective!

tumblr_kyomu8Pwuo1qa12hvo1_500.jpg
 
Ditto.

Southern Cal may be paradise for many, but not for all. I would never ever want to work and live in southern cal or NYC or Atlanta or many other "hot" areas. No thanks. Give me the rural French speaking timber town any day. I understand many people have different considerations as to what is important and what they need, spousal needs, etc. But this is life. Life is full of variability. One person's loves are not everyone else's loves. I fully understand that not everyone has hours worth of Schubert and Bruch music, and not everyone's favorite movie is "How Green was my Valley." And not everyone hates jazz music, Sushi, and the NBA. I don't think those people are delusional, they're just different people.
 
I am not at all surprised by what was posted in this thread but at least they can keep doing fellowships etc until they get their ducks in a row. I just have to say that residencies are supposed to pick good experienced pathologists as program directors, not get the rotten apple to do the job when they can't even tell the difference between cell types. PAL was only pd for a year and some change but he is the most qualified with Im certification along with path and still apparently incapable of conveying a straightforward dx. Ugh. What a waste. Don't worry people he has a job and he will with his buddy JF, another pathologist extraordinaire :bow: I wouldn't work with these people if I was paid a million bucks, literally makes you dumber if you spend any time around them. Guess what though, these are the people educating significant number of pathologists and you wonder why people can't get a job or work up a case properly. Same goes for Adolfo Firpo-Betancourt, retiree and apparently sued multiple times in PR who is now a program director. It's scary people. That accounts for 2 out of 145 residency programs. Some of the other programs are allegedly run poorly from what had been reported and my assessment of the connections of certain chairs of pathology departments across the US. Hmm... Definitely some shady stuff. I wish there was more transparency and accountability at academic institutions with their hiring and promotion practices, along with disclaimers on nepotism and other salacious factors leading to hiring because this stuff decreases professionalism standards. It's just so much harder for everyone else when this sort of stuff is happening, use and loose your residents to a tune of millions in profit every year, and then ruining people's lives, literally.
 
Last edited:
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
yaah said:
Ditto.

Southern Cal may be paradise for many, but not for all. I would never ever want to work and live in southern cal or NYC or Atlanta or many other "hot" areas. No thanks. Give me the rural French speaking timber town any day. I understand many people have different considerations as to what is important and what they need, spousal needs, etc. But this is life. Life is full of variability. One person's loves are not everyone else's loves. I fully understand that not everyone has hours worth of Schubert and Bruch music, and not everyone's favorite movie is "How Green was my Valley." And not everyone hates jazz music, Sushi, and the NBA. I don't think those people are delusional, they're just different people.
Click to expand...

Not sure I've ever seen NYC and Southern California listed with Atlanta as hot places to live. 🙂
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

octopusprime
This has become the most boring specialty forum on SDN
Replies
46
Views
8K
Alteran
Alteran
D
Is this father and son?
Replies
3
Views
1K
Denmark
D
C
Open pgy1 positions
Replies
2
Views
2K
currentres1234
C
M
Part-time Pathology Positions
Replies
18
Views
7K
DoctorMD1
D
PathNeuroIMorFM
  • Question Question
Is this a fair way to determine if path is right for me?
Replies
5
Views
2K
caffeinegirl
caffeinegirl