The 2022 Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Survey found that program directors reported a mean compensation in 2021 of $377,730 (median $350,000). That’s an 11.4% increase over the income they reported three years ago in our last survey.
Other survey results:
- Demographics and gender gap: Among program directors taking our survey, 74.1% were men, and the mean age was 48 years old. Interestingly, more than one-third—34.1%—said they work in the Southwest, while 23.5% are in the Northeast, 17.6% are in the Pacific region, 11.8% are in the Midwest. Only 9.4% are in the South and even fewer (3.5%) are in the Mountain region.
- Shifts worked: Almost 40% of program directors (37.8%) said they work a seven-on/seven-off schedule. But 60% report working some other daytime shift, while 2.2% say they work only nights.
- Hours: The majority also work 12-hour shifts (54.4%), and 39% work 14-16 shifts a month. One in five (19.5%) work between 17 and 20 shifts per month, but a larger percentage—32.5%—work 13 shifts a month or fewer. Program directors’ mean number of hours worked per month is 185.5 (median 180) compared to a mean number of 173 hours worked per month for all hospitalists who treat adults. (That cohort includes nonacademic and academic hospitalists as well as program directors.)
- Patient encounters: As for their number of patient encounters per day, 39.8% of program directors report between 15 and 17, while only 21.7% say they have between 18 and 20 patient encounters per day. But 15.7% report having more than 21 patient encounters daily; that percentage is 12.9% among nonacademic full-time hospitalists who treat adults and aren’t program directors.
- ICU: A majority of program directors—52.9%—are in the ICU serving as attending vs. 9.8% who work in an ICU without being an attending and 37.3% who don’t work in ICUs.
- Career satisfaction: Among all full-time hospitalists who treat adults, program directors reported the highest levels of career satisfaction. Among them, 38.1% said they were very satisfied with their career (vs. only 16.2% of nonacademic full-time hospitalists treating adults), while 66.1% reported being satisfied or somewhat satisfied. Going down that same scale, 9.5% admitted they were somewhat unsatisfied while 1.2% said they were very unsatisfied.
- Career longevity: Not surprisingly, program directors reported working more years in hospital medicine than their colleagues: a mean of 14.6 years compared to 11.1 for nonacademic full-time doctors. They also said they have worked longer in their current position, a mean of 10.5 years vs. 7.6 years for nonacademic hospitalists and 6.6 years for academic hospitalists who treat adults.
Want to know more? An executive summary of our adult hospitalist survey results is available for purchase here.
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