Higher pay in specialties such as diagnostic radiology appears to correlate with lower levels of diversity, according to a research letter published Thursday in JAMA [1].
Full professors in imaging earned median compensation of about $500,320 from 2015 to 2022, a number higher than 13 of 21 specialties included in the analysis. Associate professors of diagnostic radiology collected $466,100, while assistant professors earned $425,980.
Researchers uncovered a connection between diversity and pay. Lower numbers of women and minorities among trainees correlated “strongly” with higher faculty compensation.
“These results suggest that higher compensated specialties—including many surgical specialties—were less successful at recruiting [minority groups underrepresented in medicine] and women trainees,” Michael O. Mensah, MD, with the Yale University School of Medicine, and co-authors concluded. “Why certain groups are underrepresented in higher-compensated specialties, such as discrimination, attrition, and specialty culture, needs further investigation.”
The authors conducted a cross-sectional analysis of self-reported trainee data from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. They also gathered compensation info from the Association of American Medical Colleges Faculty Salary Reports, adjusting the figures to 2022 dollars to account for inflation.
There was a total of 772,910 trainees across the 21 clinical specialties between 2015 to 2022. This included 19.7% who self-reported as Asian, 45.4% white, 4.4% “other,” and 11.7% from groups underrepresented in medicine (Black, Alaska native, American Indian, Latino, native Hawaiian). About 44.9% identified as women, 52.7% men, less than 0.1% nonbinary, and 2.4% didn’t report a gender.
In diagnostic radiology, a median of about 8% of trainees identified as coming from a group underrepresented in medicine. This placed DR behind 15 of the other specialties. A median of 21% of respondents identified as Asian, 52.9% white, 73.1% male, and 26.5% female. General pediatrics saw the lowest median faculty compensation while neurosurgeons scored the highest.
Read more about the results in JAMA at the link below.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.