UPS workers now making $170,000…

[mike-sheree]

looks like the life of a moderately busy general community hospital pathologist/medical director. the grossing ain’t great but a place like that is going to be bread and butter garden variety surgical/cyto path. you will have to like VERY rural. The “additional benefits included “ had best be quite attractive. you should be strong in clin path because the medical staff won’t be. this type position was very enjoyable for me.

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[Nilf]

looks like the life of a moderately busy general community hospital pathologist/medical director. the grossing ain’t great but a place like that is going to be bread and butter garden variety surgical/cyto path. you will have to like VERY rural. The “additional benefits included “ had best be quite attractive. you should be strong in clin path because the medical staff won’t be. this type position was very enjoyable for me.

VERY rural? 'You ain't' from around here, are you' rural, or 'You got a purdy mouth' rural?

 

[Med Director New England]

Interesting banter ^^

Metro - got to ask. Your view toward corporate path entities seems personal..what happened if you’re willing to say. Not trying to be snarky just curious.

Folks - The general problem of a being overworked relative to compensation can happen to anyone who is employed. The only way to truly eat what you kill is to be in a partner in a path owned group which are becoming extinct. Employers who do this can only get away with it if they can easily replace pathologists who leave to combat constant turnover. Guess who can most easily replace pathologists - academic depts with a steady stream of new grads. The worst treated paths I’ve ever seen /r compensation / work load (including me) was in academia. This is why many of them completely turn over in just a few years.

 

[MetroPath]

Interesting banter ^^

Metro - got to ask. Your view toward corporate path entities seems personal..what happened if you’re willing to say. Not trying to be snarky just curious.

Folks - The general problem of a being overworked relative to compensation can happen to anyone who is employed. The only way to truly eat what you kill is to be in a partner in a path owned group which are becoming extinct. Employers who do this can only get away with it if they can easily replace pathologists who leave to combat constant turnover. Guess who can most easily replace pathologists - academic depts with a steady stream of new grads. The worst treated paths I’ve ever seen /r compensation / work load (including me) was in academia. This is why many of them completely turn over in just a few years.

Did these people NOT know that they were going to get paid very little for a lot of work? I mean if this was years ago then of course a lot of people had no choice when it came to jobs since we all know how crappy the market was years ago.

Or do they take these jobs despite low pay and A LOT of work because of the NAME of the institution? Some people are hell bent on doing academics so this is the only route they got (go to a big name institution which will help their career in the long run).

I’m sure some big names out there pay grads low like sub 200K in exchange for working at the big name institution. Even worse, they give you an instructor position (pathology assistant salary) before actually hiring you.

I don’t deny academics are the worst when it comes to exploitation. Hell, I got paid worse than McDonald’s wage by a big name institution once to do research for half time work. Anyone who ever participated in research knows that you won’t get anything done working 4 hours a day lol.

It’s a vicious cycle. Pump out your residents (cheap labor) and then exploit them even more once they apply for a job (with a low paid instructor or assistant professor position).

Academics are the worst for sure.

 

[mike-sheree]

While I agree minimal independence is a problem in modern training programs, in defense of recent grads the complexity of AP has almost certainly increased significantly as well. It's an exaggeration, but I'm imagining 70s/80s pathologists giving diagnoses of benign vs. adenocarcinoma/squamous cell/oat cell. Bam, 30 seconds, next case. Now, regardless of confidence level, you're ordering defensive IHC to rule out rare variants that look similar, doing full synoptics, trying to remember what reflex studies like MMR, Her2, ALK are done on which organs and whether it's done on the biopsy or resection, etc. It's the pathology equivalent of all the charting "paper"work done by other specialties.

On the flip side, I'm sure those same 70s/80s pathologists were way more involved on the CP side of things, while today it's primarily handled by even non-PhD lab managers.

You are very much correct. Pre ~2000 the lung biopsy scenario was, indeed, benign, small cell or non-small cell. Might throw a muci or pas-d on it.