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I've been reading up on sleep as a career path as much as possible for awhile. This forum offered me a ton of great information... it is too bad that more of the sleep specialists from around the US don't participate in the discussions -- especially since there seems to be a ton of them.
Which brings me to my question: is the united states, at this time or in the near future, already saturated with labs/centers?
I'm not overly risk-averse, in fact I like to think of myself as entrepreneurial in spirit. However, as I make use of google, and search for "city-XYZ sleep center" or "city-XYZ sleep medicine" pretty much everywhere seems to already be serviced by a free-standing center or hospital.
I expected large and mid-sized cities to be accounted for (everything 'medicine' is already saturated in our big cities); however, I found it worrisome that these were small cities and towns I was searching for.
If everywhere (i.e. locations with enough of a population to support a lab) in the US is already accounted for, the prospect of throwing down 300k+ to start a center seems unwise.
There is the alternative of: "why don't you just go and work for one of the already existing sleep centers". However, from what I read on this forum, they [for the most part] do not look to hire psych+sleep docs, and when they do --they do not pay well enough to warrant the opportunity cost of fellowship...I even remember a post on here where the individual said the sleep+psych job offers were for less than what they could make by just sticking to general psych (hence my interest in paving my own path).
I'm not looking for 400k per year; however, I would certainly want to be able to earn enough to warrant the additional year of fellowship + start up costs.
Overall: Do you feel the market is filled -- or is there still opportunity to be had?
Any insight is appreciated. Thanks.
Which brings me to my question: is the united states, at this time or in the near future, already saturated with labs/centers?
I'm not overly risk-averse, in fact I like to think of myself as entrepreneurial in spirit. However, as I make use of google, and search for "city-XYZ sleep center" or "city-XYZ sleep medicine" pretty much everywhere seems to already be serviced by a free-standing center or hospital.
I expected large and mid-sized cities to be accounted for (everything 'medicine' is already saturated in our big cities); however, I found it worrisome that these were small cities and towns I was searching for.
If everywhere (i.e. locations with enough of a population to support a lab) in the US is already accounted for, the prospect of throwing down 300k+ to start a center seems unwise.
There is the alternative of: "why don't you just go and work for one of the already existing sleep centers". However, from what I read on this forum, they [for the most part] do not look to hire psych+sleep docs, and when they do --they do not pay well enough to warrant the opportunity cost of fellowship...I even remember a post on here where the individual said the sleep+psych job offers were for less than what they could make by just sticking to general psych (hence my interest in paving my own path).
I'm not looking for 400k per year; however, I would certainly want to be able to earn enough to warrant the additional year of fellowship + start up costs.
Overall: Do you feel the market is filled -- or is there still opportunity to be had?
Any insight is appreciated. Thanks.
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