HCA has growing control of hospitals in Florida, so I am assuming you are looking to settle there. They have some solo pathologist opportunities right now but you have to run in between hospitals. Doesnt seem appealing but if you have no choice, then you have no choice. I sure wouldnt suggest a solo pathologist job for a new grad for sure.
See this is the thing with Pathology. People say stay away from HCA if you value your career but a majority of the job opportunities at least in Florida on pathoutlines (take a look for yourself) are HCA jobs. So grads in pathology really have no choice unless they got a connection with a solid group which isnt always the case. Add on the fact that solid groups can be picky and choosy with who they pick (I dont blame them) and you are in a tough position for jobs (you got to take what you can get) if you dont know people.
I 100% agree. You're stuck between a rock and a hard place if you're not in the know. There are plenty of jobs out there, but few advertised. HCA/FPS is actually in dire need of help pretty much across the country. Part of what makes the job so difficult is the fact that they are understaffed and ask their employees to perform miracles (e.g. cover Hospital B for frozen section 3 hours away but come back to Hospital A and make sure you sign out all of your cases). These things are not exactly unique to HCA and can appear in other practices with equal frequency.
Is there anything specific that would make one want to avoid these jobs? I'm just trying to look towards the future and see what makes a good pathology job vs a bad one.
Are you a resident? Good pathology job for a new grad: Good and pleasant colleagues with subspecialty fellowships that you can learn from, experienced members in the group that you can learn from, strong hospital contracts, strong and stable group overall (your group wont lose a contract and you will be out of a job), entrepreneural type groups that are always looking for business. These are a few things you should look for. I would not join a outpatient biopsy practice straight out of fellowship (you will lose some skills and become slowly unemployable. Go to a relatively busy hospital based group to consolidate the skills you acquired in training.
Jobs near me are mostly word of mouth. Not even sure if there are that many due to the training programs near me churning out grads every year. I’ve contacted president/owners of some groups and they have no openings.
I wasn't suggesting we do this. It seems like VC is more or less marching toward this path. Maybe we will get paid in DOGE or perhaps we can invent our own useless block chain.
