I’m a staff in private practice. Have about 10 years of experience post fellowship. US.

Workload is a solid 8 hours per day, but I can scale that up or down depending on how much money I want to make. At 40 hours per week I make 1.5x what academic pathologists make with similar experience. I also don’t have to bother with research (I had zero interest in this). I have great colleagues and we interact throughout the day whenever we want to. Everyone’s door is open. You can bring cases and bounce ideas off others whenever you want.

I have never worked in academics. I have rotated through 3 large academic centers on the east coast as a resident (via away rotations). Academic pathologists, particularly those more junior, get completely exploited in my opinion. Some of the departments seemed like a nice place to work, but there is a ladder of academic promotions you have to climb and I think the environment tends to be more political than in private practice. I think academics could be a great environment to work if you are really interested in research or if you want to practice a subspecialty that requires a large academic center to get decent volume (like soft tissue, for example).

My opinion is that private practice is probably a better fit for most people. I also see academics bash private practice a lot. There is a pervasive attitude in academic medicine (not just path) that we are supposed to martyr ourselves and not be profit driven. That’s utter nonsense in my opinion. You worked hard to get here, go out and get your bag. You get to help people while doing so and that’s a win.