What's the job description of a dermatopathologist.. do they usually work for a hospital, themselves, a clinic, a university, etc., and what exactly do they do?
Also, what is the average salary (ballpark, w/in 100k is fine) of a dermatopathologist?
If you're upset I asked about the avg. salary, please don't respond. Thanks!
🙂
Since you obviously are a layperson, let me state it as simply as possible. They (and one day "we") examine biopsies of skin under a microscope and analyze them for the presence of various types of malignant and benign tumors as well as many other diseases.
They, like all pathologists, work for private groups, at academic centers, and at reference labs (large commercial labs that hire pathologists as employees).
They start anywhere from <150K (academic centers), 225-250K (private practice), ??? (reference labs) and can make well over 1,000,000 a year, but that would be hard to do. To make over a 1,000,000 you would have to be in a small group that did only DP, and you would have to have a lot of cases plus be collecting on the preparation of the tissue and slides. Needless to say competition is fierce for skin biopsies.
The people that really have it made are dermatologists who train in DP. They can bill for seeing the patient, for doing the "surgery", for making the slide, for signing it out, for the follow-up visit, and for selling them some snake-oil anti-aging cream. Each patient that wants a mole taken off is at least 1,000 bucks in their pocket. That would be so sweet.
