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Roni Robbins | September 13, 2023 | Contributor Information
Residents enjoyed higher paychecks again after several years of stagnant income growth during the pandemic. As in past years, the majority of residents were satisfied with their earnings. However, about half of residents we surveyed carried more than $200,000 in medical school debt.
Some totals in this presentation do not equal 100% because of rounding.
Roni Robbins | September 13, 2023 | Contributor Information
An average resident's compensation rose about 5% over last year's report ($64,200), after a sluggish period with only 1% growth between 2020 and 2022.
Once patients started returning to the hospital after COVID disruptions, so did the money in the form of residents' compensation, says Hannah Hedriana, a first-year resident at Lakeland Regional Health in Florida.
Roni Robbins | September 13, 2023 | Contributor Information
Ahmed Mukhtar Ahmed, MD, MPP, MSc, a first-year resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, says meal allowances are the most practical benefit.
"Residents get free food, but it also saves them time on meal prep," he says. "During busy blocks, this is simply invaluable. It's felt more directly by the resident than, say, retirement benefits, which require delayed gratification."
Roni Robbins | September 13, 2023 | Contributor Information
In last year's report, we saw that generally the longer residents had been training, the more satisfied they were with their earnings. Ahmed says he expected newer residents to be happier with compensation.
"As interns, we have a great deal to learn ... We're also fresh out of medical school, where we were paying the price of a new home for the clinical experience. But now, we get paid to do similar work."
Roni Robbins | September 13, 2023 | Contributor Information
Hedriana doesn't believe that most residents are fairly compensated.
"It is certainly a step up from having to pay to be on rotations like we do during medical school," she says. "It is understandable that we are paid less than physicians who have an abundance of years of training." But if she wasn't sharing living expenses with her partner, Hedriana says she might not be able to afford her rent.
"When you crunch the numbers, the residents are paid just above a minimum wage rate," Ahmed says. "Some can't even afford to live in the cities they work in. Such a system can feel deeply unjust."
Roni Robbins | September 13, 2023 | Contributor Information
Among residents who don't feel fairly compensated, a three-fourths majority believed they should make at least 26% more than they did. That viewpoint was consistent with last year's report.
Roni Robbins | September 13, 2023 | Contributor Information
As in past reports, about half of respondents carried debt of over $200,000, consistent with the average debt of medical school graduates reported by the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Hedriana says her med school debt falls in line with the average. She believes others may pay more, because she received in-state tuition.
Students aged 30 or older were more likely than younger residents to carry over $300,000 in debt (30% vs 14%).
Roni Robbins | September 13, 2023 | Contributor Information
Hedriana says she typically sees patients between 40 and 80 hours per week. "If I am on my emergency medicine shifts, the shift is always high stress, with a constant flow of patients, so it would typically be about 40-50 hours. But if I am on an off-service rotation such as the MICU, I could be there between 70 and 80 hours."
Age makes a difference when it comes to how many hours residents see patients. For example, residents aged 29 and younger see patients 61-70 hours a week, at a rate of 4 percentage points more than the average resident.
Roni Robbins | September 13, 2023 | Contributor Information
Ahmed says his on-call nights vary. "Right now, I'm in my outpatient clinic block, so I work 9 AM to 5 PM with no call. In September, however, I'll be in the cardiac ICU, and we do a 28-hour call shift every 3 days."
Roni Robbins | September 13, 2023 | Contributor Information
Is unskilled, or "scut," work necessary for a complete residency?
Hedriana expresses mixed feelings. "I think some scut work is advantageous, especially if it has to do with learning how the hospital is run and how other staff operate.
"However, I do not think it should exceed an hour or two for each day of working, as you are mainly there to learn and become a physician."
Roni Robbins | September 13, 2023 | Contributor Information
Residents aged 34 or younger more often than their older peers reported that work-life balance features, such as overall schedule and call hours, were the most important factors when considering a training program.
Similarly, female residents most often said that work-life balance was their top issue (79%). For male residents, it was starting salary (76%). "I feel extremely lucky to be at my current program, as we are able to request 4 weeks off," Hedriana says.
Ahmed includes time off for family or personal emergencies as a top consideration. "I gravitated toward programs that emphasized teaching, felt team-spirited, and took the clinical work seriously," he says.
California Medical Residents Get Pay Hike, More Paid Leave in New Union Contract
After system-wide labor protests, a 5000 member residents' union clinches a historic agreement with the state's largest healthcare system.Medscape_Medical_News, Feb 2023
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