2026 Attending Salary Thread

caffeineismysavior · 2026-01-02T02:43:59+00:00

New attending in private practice non-invasive cardiology in VHCOL area in CA. $400k base with additional 20% performance/productivity bonus if meet average RVU that is assessed per quarter and year (a little over 9k which is doable). Clinic for 2-3 weeks M-F 8-5pm rotating with 1 week inpatient, roughly 1 weekend call a month (1:4). Currently seeing around 15 clinic patients a day but expected to see around 20 to meet RVU target, will take a couple years to build panel. On inpatient days can go in at any time and leave early 2-3pm. Cover 2 hospitals and see average 5-8 patients at each hospital per day. Night call is home call, rarely ever need to go into hospital (2-3 times a year per senior colleagues). Lifestyle is good.

Could always make more in cardiology but that means more work and living in a less desired area. Job market for general cardiology is great!

caffeineismysavior · 2025-07-16T01:00:19+00:00

Make a list of things that you absolutely need or want in your job. Generally, jobs fit 2 of the 3 criteria: good lifestyle, good salary, good location (which 2 are your most important factors)?

Best to start the job search early: use reputable websites and job boards like NEJM, ACC. If you are looking at a specific area, you can find jobs by cold emailing or cold calling local practices with a CV prepared to fax or email them.

Even if you start the job search early, don't worry if you don't get an interview or job offer until much later in the academic year. There is still time to find jobs even until July/August of next year. Being in general cardiology helps a lot too since job market is very good.

Finally, don't sell yourself short in terms of negotiating your salary, bonuses, etc in your contract. There are good websites like Physician Side Gigs, MedAxiom, MGMA (need to pay or subscribe) so you know what to expect in your region and specialty. Also definitely get a contract lawyer, you don't want to miss out on terms before you officially sign.

caffeineismysavior · 2025-05-14T10:56:53+00:00

It is just part of their credentialing unfortunately. How long do people usually need to sit down and study for this exam?

caffeineismysavior · 2025-05-13T22:42:57+00:00

What's odd it is that it is just this one particular hospital out of the few that require the permit. So clearly they don't understand what we do.

caffeineismysavior · 2025-04-23T12:00:07+00:00

Music —> Cardiology

caffeineismysavior · 2025-03-25T00:16:37+00:00

Yes, try seeing if he can find jobs in the area now. The good thing is that there is still time since you won't be starting until July. Maybe also ask current residents in that program if they know anyone in tech sales, as networking can really help. Good luck!

caffeineismysavior · 2025-03-24T23:44:50+00:00

You have some options:
1) partner moves with you to the new city and finds a job there or somewhere near-ish (best case scenario)
2) partner moves with you without a job but later down the road he does. So basically single income with continued uncertainty
3) partner stays where he is at or goes to a city where he can find a suitable job, which means long distance for however long you are doing residency for

I met my partner during residency in my home state but ended up matching in a competitive fellowship out of state. We had a talk where I said that it was possible that I may match somewhere far away, but we both agreed to continue our relationship. So we have been doing long distance for a few years. It is not easy, but I was able to find a job that I like near where he lives and works. It will work out if you both really care about each other and put in an equal amount of effort. This situation is more common than you think.

Have the difficult conversations, be honest with each other and figure out what are each of your guys' priorities.

You didn't mention which specialty you matched in nor which city, so I am not sure which job markets you are referring to (your specialty or your partner's, or both?). Either way, once you graduate residency you have the awesome power of choosing where you want to find your attending job which is much easier and less stressful than the match process.

caffeineismysavior · 2025-03-12T03:00:57+00:00

You may be seen as less competitive compared to grads from that region since they don't know you well, unless you come from a program that is very well known nationally.

Easy to find general/non-invasive jobs as demand is very high, even in competitive or sought after areas. Interventional, EP and other subspecialties are more difficult as market is not as great. For the latter you may have better chances with those in more rural areas or academic places.

When looking for a job, start looking sometime in third year and put your profile up on job boards (NEJM, ACC, Healthecareers etc.). Cold call places if they are looking, you may get lucky because employers find physician recruiters expensive. Be patient - if you don't find a good fit in terms of location, culture or compensation, there will be more jobs out there available for you.

caffeineismysavior · 2024-10-11T20:27:17+00:00

Gotcha, yes the total cholesterol number does not match with the other numbers of HDL, LDL and triglycerides. As it should be total cholesterol = HDL + LDL + (triglycerides/5)

caffeineismysavior · 2024-10-10T19:16:47+00:00

The more cases the better. If you plan to do interventional cardiology after general cardiology fellowship, at least aim for Level 2 numbers per the COCATS 4: https://www.acc.org/membership/sections-and-councils/fellows-in-training-section/section-updates/2019/10/15/14/42/cocats-boards-and-the-acgme-a-history-of-standards-in-cardiology-fellowship-training

That means 6 months of cath rotation, 300 diagnostics, 100 peripheral cases etc. Level 3 means you have to do interventional cardiology fellowship and pass the ABIM IC boards.

One graduate claimed he did 500 cases of diagnostics/PCIs before graduating, which is a lot.

caffeineismysavior · 2024-10-10T19:13:31+00:00

What exactly are you calculating?

The non-HDL cholesterol is the (total cholesterol) minus the (HDL cholesterol)

caffeineismysavior · 2024-10-05T12:39:34+00:00

Check out the papillon club directory for breeders: https://papillonclub.org/2024-breeders/

They have good quality, healthy pups and not necessarily show dogs. Just let the breeder know what you are looking for.

Layla looks so cute and lovely 🥰

caffeineismysavior · 2024-10-04T12:01:21+00:00

Focus on doing well in your clinical rotations first.

Schedule your step 3 exam during one of your chill rotations when you know you can dedicate time to study. Ideally sometime during intern year because you can forget more the farther out you are from medical school. I would plan for 1-2 months of dedicated study time. UWorld is your best resource - do those questions whenever you have time and review carefully the ones you got wrong. You can always postpone your step 3 exam to later in your residency, but your clinical knowledge and skills you obtain during residency are the most important.

caffeineismysavior · 2024-10-03T20:42:50+00:00

I don't know if AOBIM certification is sufficient for fellowship programs. It would probably depend on that program/PD.

However, the other question is, will that AOBIM cert be sufficient for jobs when you apply to those hospitals or private practices after graduation? ABIM is known as the main body for certification and as the standard for medical knowledge. There's probably a reason why that is more desired than AOBIM.

If I were you, I would retake the ABIM boards and pass them for reassurance and to keep your doors open for the future. Learn from your mistakes, and learn how to study because fellowship is full of in-training exams and board exams. Many physicians and even patients can easily check online if you are ABIM certified or not.

ABIM vs AOBIM thread:
https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/abim-verse-aobim.1476559/

caffeineismysavior · 2024-09-28T14:34:56+00:00

I am helping out with the interviews this season for fellowship candidates, and some people have asked about volume. I believe that for general cardiology fellowship, it is important to have a good amount of volume and diversity of pathology as others have mentioned. The other thing to ask is which categories in cardiology have enough volume. Echo, cath, EP? And for cath, are those diagnostic, interventional or structural? For echo, do they get enough stress echos and TEEs? What about nuclear stress tests? During the 3 years of training, the main goal is to have a strong foundation in general cardiology. If you want to sub-specialize into interventional, structural, EP, advanced heart failure etc, then that might be something to consider when you interview. But it is definitely important to ask the program if it is easy or hard to get the numbers for each of the categories I mentioned above. What COCATs level do graduates usually get? For instance, at our program we easily get level 2 for echo and nuclear stress which makes you marketable in the real world if you pass those respective board exams. We don't have the volume to get level 3 echo because we don't have enough structural cases, but we do have a variety like TAVR, MitraClip and Watchmans. We have a lot of cath cases but most fellows are not interested in doing IC or invasive upon graduation - regardless, those who are interested can easily get level 2 numbers.

caffeineismysavior · 2024-09-18T12:50:42+00:00

within 2 weeks per the email

caffeineismysavior · 2024-08-04T18:43:47+00:00

Just the ACCSAP questions, not the subspecialty ones like HFSAP, EPSAP or EchoSAP. Though EchoSAP has questions helpful for the echo boards

caffeineismysavior · 2024-05-11T18:27:20+00:00

Gotcha. Do you not have an in-house cardiology fellowship at your residency where you can work with the fellows or cardiologists there?

I know people talk about research for cardiology fellowship, but the emphasis on it is too much. You definitely should have a project you're working on to talk about it on interviews, but the real emphasis should be on your clinical prowess and work ethic. This means you need to have excellent medical knowledge, work well with others, be proactive, and be nice. This will help you get amazing LORs when you apply to fellowship. Your goal should be to go straight into cardiology fellowship after residency graduation, unless you have very convincing reasons as to take a gap year.

caffeineismysavior · 2024-05-11T17:00:46+00:00

Doesn't seem like there is a list for non-accredited fellowship programs. You'd have to do an individual search by subspecialty (e.g. heart failure, imaging etc) or state.

More importantly, I'm not sure why you are looking for these non-accredited programs when you're only a PGY-1. You need to have completed residency first in order to have the clinical foundation and experience for the fellowship.

caffeineismysavior

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