What IS the average starting anesthesia salary this moment?

[IlDestriero]

now thats a dbag.

I hope that he doesn't look at the vaca advice thread. Those rich doctors might be going to fancy resorts in exotic places!

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[avatarftw]

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[Sergio99]

G
FYI: my brother works in Los Angeles proper, pulls almost $600K on fee for service 1099. I have another friend who works for Kaiser pulls significantly less (I won't disclose how much Kaiser pays since they are a huge entity out West). But the Kaiser package is very comparable when you factor in my brother works 60 plus hours a week (no benefits) while my friend at Kaiser works very close to 40 hours a week (with benefits and long term benefits).

Hello,

Your brother is a very fortunate man. Congratulations to him. I also found an anesthesiologist that had made so much money, that retired at 40 years of age. But this is not the norm.

When a university took over our hospital in 2005, when everywhere else in the country the statistics for starting salaries were not too different from today's, the said university invited us to join them and wanted to pay us 180,000 for a five day week, or, if we wanted a teaching and research day, 150,000 for a four day week, all of this from 7 am to 5 pm.

At another famous hospital in Los Angeles, the "partners" make very good money, but the serfs earn a miserable salary, which would be your case if you just started to work there. They have a hard time retaining staff, but they always find people willing to work for anything.

Regarding Kaiser, yes, it is a wonderful place to work, but they don't have openings every day, and when they do have an opening, they advertise very widely, so that they have oodles of people competing for the same position, which means your chances of getting the job are slim.

I have been working in Los Angeles for a long time in private practice, and it took me 25 years to find a job that pays relatively well, and when I say well, it is not the kind of numbers people have been mentioning on this thread: it is much lower, and I know that I am not the only one who tells this story.

So yes, there are good jobs out there, but they are not easy to find. I keep getting those same letters from head hunters, that promise you the world, but they are either in areas where I would not want to live, or the jobs are not as good as they look in the letter.

I hope this is helpful, since there is hard data coupled with personal experience, not just opinion or hearsay.

Greetings

 

[aneftp]

Hello,

Your brother is a very fortunate man. Congratulations to him. I also found an anesthesiologist that had made so much money, that retired at 40 years of age. But this is not the norm.

When a university took over our hospital in 2005, when everywhere else in the country the statistics for starting salaries were not too different from today's, the said university invited us to join them and wanted to pay us 180,000 for a five day week, or, if we wanted a teaching and research day, 150,000 for a four day week, all of this from 7 am to 5 pm.

At another famous hospital in Los Angeles, the "partners" make very good money, but the serfs earn a miserable salary, which would be your case if you just started to work there. They have a hard time retaining staff, but they always find people willing to work for anything.

Regarding Kaiser, yes, it is a wonderful place to work, but they don't have openings every day, and when they do have an opening, they advertise very widely, so that they have oodles of people competing for the same position, which means your chances of getting the job are slim.

I have been working in Los Angeles for a long time in private practice, and it took me 25 years to find a job that pays relatively well, and when I say well, it is not the kind of numbers people have been mentioning on this thread: it is much lower, and I know that I am not the only one who tells this story.

So yes, there are good jobs out there, but they are not easy to find. I keep getting those same letters from head hunters, that promise you the world, but they are either in areas where I would not want to live, or the jobs are not as good as they look in the letter.

I hope this is helpful, since there is hard data coupled with personal experience, not just opinion or hearsay.

Greetings

I probably know that "famous hospital" where the partners make very good money and the low seniority anesthesia people make much much less. I looked at that hospital. Let's just say the guys who cover the OB service (the private OB service) pull close to 7 figures while they give the junior anesthesia staff all the medi-cal patients. When they are not medi cal, they are medicare and less than 20% are private insurance. That's why they can't retain their new staff out there.

All my friends out in the LA area make close to 500K plus. But to make that kind of money you have to work very hard; if you are
willing to work 60 plus hours and limit yourself to around 4-5 weeks of vacation.

But you are right, that's the problem with the California market. There's no "in between" jobs out there. If you strictly only want to work around 40 hours a week, you will take a major salary hit down to the low 200K range. You either need to kill yourself working 60 plus hours a week with less vacation to make very good money or settle for 50% less pay working normal hours.

Unlike other areas of the country where one can work a 40 hour M-F no calls and weekend and still pull over 300K easy, it's very hard to do that in LA.

As for Kaiser SoCal, it's a crapshoot. I was about to take a job out there but my friends told me to avoid it. Because not all Kaiser jobs are created the same. Because of Kaiser's pay structure, your goal is to do the least amount of work as possible. But the only Kaiser jobs that usually have openings are the ones where the anesthesia providers work much harder than the ones without any openings. Kinda of like how the VA jobs are structure. Some VA jobs are never advertised/in house filling of open slot. While some VA jobs always have openings. Because the VA jobs pay roughly the same, why should one work at a place where you would work much harder than a similar guy for the same pay.

I come from a family of anesthesiologists. My brother is 10 years older than me. I have other sisters and two brother-in laws who are also all anesthesiologists. I have learned the whole entire system of anesthesia networking from them. They have gotten screwed in the anesthesia business game. I won't make the same mistake as them, only because of the experience I have learned. That's why I make in the mid 400s working in a M-F outpatient facility, no calls, no weeks and 6 weeks off.

 

[Soon2BENT]

need to find a job first before talking salary. i'm a CA3 with 6 weeks to go with no job. thanks for the "job security" medicine.

 

[karizma098]

need to find a job first before talking salary. i'm a CA3 with 6 weeks to go with no job. thanks for the "job security" medicine.

i find it's hard to believe you cant find a single job. my dad is hiring, our affiliated hospitals in chicago are hiring, plenty of places in ny are hiring right now, all for salaries in the average range...

you might not get the benefits or best salary off the bat, but you will always have a decent paying job. if you were in business right now, what would your options be? not great.

medicine may not be a lot of things, but one of the things it does guarantee is job security.

 

[pgg]

need to find a job first before talking salary. i'm a CA3 with 6 weeks to go with no job. thanks for the "job security" medicine.

So, which 25 square mile urban geographic location are you surgically attached to?

 

[IlDestriero]

So, which 25 square mile urban geographic location are you surgically attached to?

Since you can't get your dream job, why not just ***** yourself out at a very high pay shady location for a few years. You will be debt free, well on your way to retirement AND more competitive when you reapply for your dream location. It's not a setback, but an opportunity.
I hope you don't have any student loans/debt, because it will take 8-24 weeks to get credentialled and/or licensed.

 

[Sergio99]

need to find a job first before talking salary. i'm a CA3 with 6 weeks to go with no job. thanks for the "job security" medicine.

Hello,

Just like the other posters said, get a job anywhere, and while you work there, keep a lookout for better jobs. In the meantime you get experience and pay your debts.

Greetings