Variability in First Academic Medicine Job Offers in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

BackgroundA minority of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) graduates pursue careers in academic medicine. Although compensation is only a portion of the career decision, job negotiations remain shrouded in ambiguity and inconsistency. Additionally, while role-level salary tables exist through the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), to our knowledge there is no resource that includes important non-salary information such as start-up packages, full-time equivalent (FTE) breakdown, and bonus ranges. ObjectiveWe sought to describe key components of first PCCM academic job offers for both physician scientists and clinician educators, including salary, start-up packages, non-clinical FTE, and bonuses. MethodsAn electronic survey was distributed via a snowball method between May - June 2025. PCCM graduates between 2020-2025 who accepted a job in academic medicine were included. Mann-Whitney Wilcoxon tests were used for ordinal comparisons. Qualitative analysis of free text responses was performed with a social cognitive career theory framework. ResultsThere were 60 respondents who provided information about 103 job offers, with 50% (14/28) of physician-scientists and 66% (21/32) of clinician-educators reporting more than one job offer. Physician-scientists received lower salary offers compared to clinician-educators (respective median ranges: $150,000-$199,999 vs $250,000-$299,999, p<0.001). 35.7% physician-scientists (10/28) received a career development award prior to negotiation, which was associated with a higher start-up package offer (p<0.05). For all clinician-educator jobs (n=59), 42.4% had non-clinical FTE in the initial offer. Many respondents commented on the lack of negotiating power. ConclusionPCCM physician-scientists and clinician-educators experience wide variability in their initial job offers. Recognizing differences is essential to improve transparency in job negotiations in academic medicine.