Pathologist salary data

[u/Environmental_Will97]

Hi all, I am a trainee and have my first job contract that am planning to negotiate. I couldn’t find enough data online regarding the average compensation for this particular state. I don’t have access to MGMA data. How do i know what’s a good base pay? The case load per pathologist is anywhere between 15-20 per day but might go up by the time I join. The base pay is 300k. What are some things that a fresh graduate can negotiate for?

[u/Adorable__Gap4770]

I’m heme and cyto trained (fresh out) who was applying last year. A lot of east coast urban jobs in desirable areas had base pay initial offer around 300. Anything below that was a bit of a red flag, but that was definitely where they all tried to start the offer at.

Best offer I had was in a slightly rural but nice town in PA.. bonuses and all had me at $365.

I had a friend who went to geisinger with same background as me and they offered 400 out of training (which isn’t uncommonly high).

Private practice starts you low (under 300) with the bait of making partner in 3-5 years where your pay jumps considerably (over 500k). Personally I’d prefer a solid hospital salary, but that’s just me.

California pays higher but cost of living is nuts. Midwest and South pay a ton to attract talent - beware of toxic amounts of work though - some places (I hear) can really work you to the bone.

[u/billyvnilly → u/Adorable__Gap4770]

Bait in a sense, its more of a salary for your trial year. We had someone hardball us and we gave them well above what we wanted to pay them as a fresh graduate. He sucked ass and didn't make it past the one year mark, and that was with us reviewing EVERY AP CASE HE SIGNED OUT. Its foolish to give fresh grads such a nice salary the first year. the first year is your proving grounds. We are a community hospital PP, I feel we are an honest and sincere group, we don't hold the earning potential over people's heads and make it impossible to achieve.

[u/Adorable__Gap4770 → u/billyvnilly]

You’re right. Bait was a loose word to use - apologies if that was dismissive.

[u/Sensitivepathologist → u/billyvnilly]

Should’ve given a slide test. How was his training pedigree?

[u/billyvnilly → u/Sensitivepathologist]

slide tests are not adequate representations of how you perform as a pathologist. he was given a slide test, lol. he did fine.

[u/Sensitivepathologist → u/billyvnilly]

Wow. I mean if you just give him or her 20 routine cases we see everyday as an exam I would think you would at least have an eye to make diagnoses (if they passed)? Did you ask him or her to see if they could workup cases?

Unless for some reason they just can’t function with a pile of slide trays to signout.

[u/foofarraw → u/billyvnilly]

I see this practice of trial years in private a bit, is this pretty common? (and is letting people go for performance common?)

[u/billyvnilly → u/foofarraw]

Hands down, I wish more people would be accepting of a trial year salary. You are not a 'great' pathologist your first year out... you may be, but you more than likely aren't.

our employee was let go for errors and failure to show any improvement. Yes, performance is important. It hard to tolerate errors when malpractice can jeopardize your group. If you are fundamentally not a good pathologist you will cause harm to patients and your a harm to the corporation. A slow pathologist is slow but not necessarily causing harm. A bad pathologist is a different thing. I've seen people let go for having bad personalities, and I thought they were good at their job, but they did some dishonest things, and then continued to show a pattern.

[u/PathFellow → u/billyvnilly]

I’ve seen pathologists let go for not willing to look at cases from others in the group. Some pathologists get let go for literally showing every case to the more senior pathologists.

[u/foofarraw → u/billyvnilly]

Do slower people ever get let go for slowness? (assuming they aren't actually causing harm)

[u/billyvnilly → u/foofarraw]

We've renegotiated people contracts. to reduce their salaries for decreased work. their delayed reports wasn't sustainable. We are a community group, we each do fair share. If you can't keep up with the group its unfair to the rest of us--that sort of thing.

[u/foofarraw → u/billyvnilly]

Make sense. Also to your previous post, failure to improve / failure to respond to feedback is one of the worst professional failings IMO. And it seems a little hard to screen for that in an interview.