Academic salary?

[ruralhemonc]

I am considering taking an academic oncology job (trialist) in the next 8 months and have been curious what the starting salary would be for an assistant professor at schools in Western (not California) and Midwestern college towns. I located Michigan's salary database and did a quick search for hem/onc, which is here (http://www.umsalary.info/deptsearch.php?Dept=Int+Med-Hematology%2FOncology&Year=0&Campus=).

My sense is these salaries are pre-tax, with very little in the way of bonuses, for the junior faculty. It appears most Assistant Profs are in the upper 100K/lower 200K range and that value bumps up ever so slightly with each promotion in academic rank (the former cancer center director is listed at  ~290K/year).

Is this basically the expected salary range for academic IM subspecialty jobs? How do other sources of income fit into this as people are promoted? I honestly expected a larger range from junior to senior faculty. I looked up a more procedure based specialty (cards) and the numbers weren't all that different.

Any information is helpful since salaries can be largely taboo to discuss with colleagues and most of my colleagues go into private practice.

 

 

 

[adventure]

Can we get a little more focused than Arizona to Seattle to Ohio to Oklahoma? Huge ranges there.

That aside, I'd look at FTE % and clinical %. Those will have a big range.

Also, medscape has some salary data.

 

edit: Also, that seems really really low. many peds/primary care jobs are higher than that.

[Dreamgiver]

Wow those salaries are low. I do not know the salaries for your field, but the oncologists at my academic institution do much better than that.

[Rotish]

That sounds about right for a prestigious place like Michigan.

I know radiologists at similarly reputable places with starting base salaries under 200k

[StarTrekDoc]

Did my IM residency there and know a lot of these guys and believe that maybe clinical time salaries. A lot have carved out time on projects and funds flow in from those may not be reflected on that. UC appears to be the same too as the salaries appear to reflect only the clinical portion of the salary.

Gotta love some 'transparency' in pubic systems.  We still have a long way to go to make accountable where system bloat occurs and where we could be a lot leaner and efficient.

 

[PHANTASOS]

Some states (?most) have salary data available for all public employees. If the academic institution is a state university it should be easy to find out how much everyone is making. Just look at what year a faculty member finished their training and what their academic title is and compare with what their salary is. Rinse & repeat for next person until you feel like you have an idea about the academic marketplace.

[ENT Doc]

Link to Ohio State's salaries:

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/blog/2016/03/osu-salary-database-updated-for-2016-plus-the.html

 

[RadDoc6876]

It depends a lot on the terms and conditions stated in the contract and percentage of academic time vs. clinical/RVU requirements.  But make sure those percentages are what you want and are enforceable.  Also be aware that your greatest negotiating leverage is at time of hiring.  Promotions in academia can be a moving target, and often don't bring much salary increase.

[adventure]

ruralhemonc wrote:

Any information is helpful since salaries can be largely taboo to discuss with colleagues and most of my colleagues go into private practice.

Click to expand...

I thought about this comment on a run today.

It's only taboo because you allow it to be taboo. Don't. I'd encourage you to talk about it - ask (like you did here).

[Kamban]

ruralhemonc wrote:

My sense is these salaries are pre-tax, with very little in the way of bonuses, for the junior faculty. It appears most Assistant Profs are in the upper 100K/lower 200K range and that value bumps up ever so slightly with each promotion in academic rank (the former cancer center director is listed at ~290K/year). Is this basically the expected salary range for academic IM subspecialty jobs? How do other sources of income fit into this as people are promoted? I honestly expected a larger range from junior to senior faculty. I looked up a more procedure based specialty (cards) and the numbers weren’t all that different.

Click to expand...

Since you have come to this site I assume you are looking for better financial outcome in your life and achieve financial stability. if not financial independence. I don't know what your student loans are if any, whether you have a spouse and who works, kids, other expenses, other sources of income etc.

But getting $160K after 3 years of fellowship with not much increases each year is not an attractive position to be in however much you want to do trials. Unless you want to use the first few years experience to pad up your resume and get a better paying private practice jobs. So make sure you know the financial hole you are getting in and having a game plan before you go the trialist route.

The PP oncologists employed by a large group or hospital get 400K income on the average.

[ruralhemonc]

Kamban wrote:

ruralhemonc wrote:

My sense is these salaries are pre-tax, with very little in the way of bonuses, for the junior faculty. It appears most Assistant Profs are in the upper 100K/lower 200K range and that value bumps up ever so slightly with each promotion in academic rank (the former cancer center director is listed at ~290K/year). Is this basically the expected salary range for academic IM subspecialty jobs? How do other sources of income fit into this as people are promoted? I honestly expected a larger range from junior to senior faculty. I looked up a more procedure based specialty (cards) and the numbers weren’t all that different. 

Click to expand…

Since you have come to this site I assume you are looking for better financial outcome in your life and achieve financial stability. if not financial independence. I don’t know what your student loans are if any, whether you have a spouse and who works, kids, other expenses, other sources of income etc.

But getting $160K after 3 years of fellowship with not much increases each year is not an attractive position to be in however much you want to do trials. Unless you want to use the first few years experience to pad up your resume and get a better paying private practice jobs. So make sure you know the financial hole you are getting in and having a game plan before you go the trialist route.

The PP oncologists employed by a large group or hospital get 400K income on the average.

Click to expand...

If this helps:

1) spouse works - ~70K/yr

2) 2 kids enrolled in public schools and will likely continue to do so

3) no student loans - very fortunate to have scholarship support throughout college and medical school; wife covered living expenses during medical school

 

No other real expenses. No other sources of income at the time. We believe strongly in "The Millionaire Next Door" principles. We both drive used cars that we purchased for less than 9K each. Will keep them during first attending gig. Fellowship is in a college town. Our neighbors are "upper level" blue collar workers and most of them just know that I work at the hospital in some type of medical capacity. Our kids go to schools where the majority of parents are not white collar workers. We love their schools.

We intend to continue living in our current type of home (3 BR/2 Ba ranch) when I get my first attending job. We will, of course, rent for a period of time before buying at whatever destination we end up at. Our savings rate has been ~20% throughout my fellowship and I am eager to see us get closer to 30% for the first two years after fellowship and then higher still. Do that for 30 years in a job I love, and I am not so worried about financial independence.

If it helps, I have pretty much zero interest in doing private practice. We had exposure to some private practice settings during fellowship and I didn't like the number of clinics and volumes of patients we were expected to see. There is evidence linking the number of patients seen in oncology per week to the risk of burnout - I started to feel that even while I was in the PP setting. I enjoy trials and research much more than seeing patients and would likely move to industry if I were forced to take a non-academic job.

[SValleyMD]

Sounds like you have a pretty good understanding/ perspective of what you want and have the lifestyle to fit the salary..

Plus you can always can go from academics to PP at any point if things change.. always harder going the opposite direction

Good luck!

[wolverine41]

My wife is a staff doc at UM. Her reported salary is not the same as her actual salary. Their is 2 components to it, and only one is published. Their is also performance bonuses built in to contract as well, so all of the numbers published are low, probably around 50-100K, depending on the speciality.

 

 

[Matas]

You might check into the AAMC salary survey. It is similar to the MGMA publication, but for academic medicine positions.

[HandFellow]

Those numbers are low for U of M.  I think those are salaries for being a professor, not for the work of being a physician.  Here is the link for the University of Utah (the entire university).

http://www.utahsright.com/salaries.php?city=u_of_u

When you look at who the professors are, they are physicians within the university and they are doing very well.  I would be surprised if that was the entire compensation package for U of M.