What's the salary of a rural doctor in the National Health Service Corp?

February 8, 2013 9:24 AM

Sorry for the anonymous post. I am a pediatrician finishing my residency in July. I am interested in doing the National Health Service Corp in a rural area. I have looked at dozens of job posts on the NHSC website, but none of them list their salary. Instead they only mention that it is "competitive." It is frustrating because I don't know what the industry range for "competitive" salaries is. What is a "competitive" salary for a young pediatrician working in a rural area? $60k? $100k? $150k? Thank you so much for your help!
posted by anonymous to work & money (5 answers total)

It would be helpful to clarify what country. Are you in... Australia?
posted by DarlingBri at 9:43 AM on February 8

The National Health Service Corps operates in the U.S.
posted by BurntHombre at 9:47 AM on February 8

Do you have access to PubMed articles? At least in my specialty (EM) there are articles published in the main journals that give ranges of salaries, academic vs. private and by region of the country. My program director for residency also gave us a copy of a salary survey, have you asked him/her about it?

Here's a link to a salary survey I found on Medscape.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 9:59 AM on February 8

By the way, when you look at the survey I linked to above, the regional figures will include obviously both urban and rural practices in that region. The rule is usually to assume that the salaries will be above average in rural area.

The less desirable a place is to live, the more they will pay you to work there. Remember that when you're negotiating for your desired job. And free advice: don't use a recruiter.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 10:02 AM on February 8 [1 favorite]

Local "competitive" salaries are actually going to vary a lot depending on location, cost of living, type of work, fringe benefits, productivity incentives, etc. For example, a job where you see 100 patients a week in a local clinic funded by a nonprofit dependent on grant support in rural South Dakota and you're on call 1:3 is likely to pay differently from a job where you see 120 patients in a clinic run by the Department of Health in upstate NY with 1:15 call or a job at an academic medical center where you only see 50 patients/week because the rest of your time is spent supervising residents or managing inpatients.

Definitely look at the survey data to get a rough idea. Here's a link to a bunch more sites from the AAP's job site.

The best way to find out is to get in touch with the contacts at the jobs you're interested in and ask for details. By the time you've heard back from a few of them you'll have a much better idea of what the compensation range is and what to ask about.

Also, as an aside--residency programs by and large do a terrible job of preparing residents for jobs in private practice, mostly because they are run by people who have spent their careers in academia. There are a lot of things to take into account in the job hunt (like who pays for malpractice insurance/tail coverage, buying into partnerships, etc). Definitely try to talk to some people who have experience in a wide variety of practice settings about what you should expect and look for. The American College of Physicians website has some career information that's geared toward primary care doctors that I think would also be relevant to pediatricians.

Like I said I know the internal medicine market best but feel free to Memail me if you have questions.
posted by The Elusive Architeuthis at 10:10 AM on February 8 [1 favorite]