80-90k starting salary for child neurologist?

[NTF]

I'm an M3 interested in Peds Neuro. I was meeting with a classmate of mine who just applied to Peds Neuro programs and she told me that average starting salary of a newly minted child neurology attending in an academic setting is between 80-90k/yr. Is that true? For some reason it sounded low to me. It won't affect my decision on whether to enter the field or not, but I was just surprised that pediatric subspecialists are compensated so poorly when they finish their training. She did say that after 5yrs average salary comes closer to 140k.

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[eviorr]

Well, I am in my last year of pediatric neuro, but I haven't started applying for jobs yet because I will be doing sleep medicine fellowship next. My department has several attendings just out of training, however, and they pretty much tell the same story. There is a critical shortage of child neurologists, so unless you are dead set on being at a specific center, just about everyone was able to negotiate a higher starting package than initially offered. It sounds like the lowest anyone saw as a starting offer was $120K. This is also coming from people looking at only academic spots, and predominantly on the East Coast, which has the highest concentration of pediatric neurologists. Pay is significantly higher in other regions, and much higher in private practice. Pediatric neurology, like all pediatric sub-specialties other than neonatology, is in critical shortage, and many departments have had opening go unfilled for up to a year. While pediatric specialists will always make less than their adult counterparts, pediatric neurologists are in a good position to negotiate a salary above what you have cited.

- Erick

 

[kutastha]

I recall an attending once saying to me, "Child neurology is one speciality where you do a fellowship and make less money." I don't know what the salary is coming out of the gates, but I imagine this isn't too far off.

 

[eviorr]

The same thing has been said about every pediatric subspecialty that does not include a procedural component. The truth of it is that you are comparing apples and oranges, however - unlike adult specialists, pediatric specialists are predominantly working in an academic setting. You can definitely make more doing private practice pediatrics than you can doing academic-based pediatric neurology, but an academic pediatric neurologist should make more than an academic pediatrician. Likewise, a private practice pediatric neurologist can out-earn a private practice pediatrician if they are serving the same patient population with the same insurance mix.

From a private 2011 physician salary survey (http://www.profilesdatabase.com/resources/2011-2012-physician-salary-survey):

......................................National 6-year practicing average.........Median starting
Neurology..............................$237,000.........................................$190,000
Pediatric Neurology................$218,200.........................................$182,000
Pediatrics..............................$202,500.........................................$162,000

Other private head-hunting and physician recruitment websites have roughly the same break-down. The relationship between pediatric neurologists' income and adult neurologists' income is also consistent with the findings of the older Child Neurology Workforce Study that the Child Neurology Society commissioned from the Wharton School of Business (Polsky, Weiner, 2003). Remember, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

- Erick

 

[NTF]

Thanks for the responses. I always knew being interested in a peds subspecialty that lower compensation came with the territory. I was a little taken aback by the 80-90k number. It's reassuring to know it isn't that low.

 

[michaelrack]

don't know much about neuro salaries, but I can tell you that academic salaries can be difficult to compare. When I was a psych academic last decade, the base salary was in the 80K range but there were other sources of income, including a share of the revenue from seeing pts and a departmental stipend that brought total salary into the 6 figures. Academics often receive their income from 4-6 sources (base salary from the school of medicine, medical directorship from the hospital, departmental stipend/revenue sharing, research grants, etc).