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How is the job market in California?
For someone who’s going to start DR residency in California soon at a mid-tier program, how difficult would it be to stay in California? Doesn’t matter if it’s Socal or Norcal. Is it difficult to crack the big hospitals like Kaiser or Sutter? Does it matter more where you do residency or fellowship?
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28 Replies
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is there even such a thing as a lower tier residency program in California?
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If by “Norcal” you mean Redding or Eureka and by “Socal” you mean Bakersfield, then it’s pretty good.
If you mean LA, SF, or San Diego then not so much. Even in the best radiology job markets, the people in urban coastal California look around and say “What radiologist shortage?”
That said… network, network, network. Meet people, develop connections early … you can probably find something good if you treat your residency like a 4 year job interview.-
+1 dergon
Networking is everything. Make friends and keep them.
Keep your nose clean in residency. Groups don’t need your references. They often already know some attendings at your residency program and likely some of your senior residents and will call them up to get an unvarnished opinion. If you develop a reputation in residency, good or bad, they’ll probably find out about it. Not unusual for an applicant who is otherwise very strong to not get the job because of a negative memorable event that happened during training that an attending or a co-resident/fellow holds against you. Note that if they really liked you they would not be bringing it up 3 years later to hurt you, e.g. occasional misses or being slow or not the being the sharpest in noon conference…. most things can be forgiven if you are a seen as a stand-up guy/gal.
For most groups, whether you went to high tier or mid tier in CA is not as big of a deal as your reputation among your peers and the attendings. Be known as someone people enjoy working with: who shows up on time, works hard, doesn’t complain or talk trash, is always helpful and not petty, is detailed-oriented, and helps clean the list to make sure everyone gets out on time. Do not be that resident who often disappears early and leaves the other residents and fellows to clean up the work.-
There are probably few, if any, true PP’s with partnership tracks in the desirable parts of CA (SoCal, SF Bay/NorCal). Even the psuedo-corporates like Kaiser aren’t easy but they are attainable. Being a Radiologist (substandard pay and super hight cost-of-living) in the desirable parts of CA is accepting slightly-better-than-middle-class living. Not that there is anything wrong with that, Cali is awesome. But it’s a compromise that one likely has to make. YMMV.
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If we are talking about the absolute number of partnership track PP groups (mostly just collecting pro fees), Id estimate there are a far larger number than many states in the Midwest , simply on the basis of population size and number of hospitals in the urban sprawl. If talking about proportion of PP partnership track vs employed positions, I can definitely see that being lower in CA.
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e.g. occasional misses?
Who doesn’t occasionally miss things, especially as a resident.
This strikes me as odd to even say.-
Job market seems good. Just passed on a nice PP job in coastal CA. Seemed like a great opportunity, but am going to make more than twice as much in a large midwest city. Money isnt everything, but location isnt either.
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Balance. If you have connections/roots to CA then its worth considering a pay cut to live there. May love it and not want to go anywhere else.
Im not a huge fan of the let me take my family to some random town where we dont know anyone to make money idea and if you dont have kids or are still single, then its especially stupid
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Agree with ECICNIR.
Recently I’ve come across a lot of single young rads in their 30s. It seems less paper get married by the end of residency these day which was unusual for my generation.
Anyway, if you have family and especially kids it’s very hard to move them to a random small town that you don’t know anybody. And if you are single, it is also stupid to move to a random small town where everyone woman is married and has 4 kids by the age of 28.
Also recently I have noticed a large number of radiologists who were not born here (many moved to US to go to college/med school or even came after med school). Most of these people strongly prefer to join their background community which usually live in coastal cities.
Due to these factors, big coastal cities like always will have a tough job market and is a great place for corporate radiology to thrive and grow.
My 2 cents.
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How many men do you think would marry a single doctor in her 30s who was always ‘too busy’ for marriage or kids? Women generally want someone with higher income which is hard when you’re a radiologist 😉
Also ask, what male radiologist in his 30s wants to get married in residency when his income is about to 9X?
I don’t think it’s a surprise why you’re seeing more radiology residents than ever (by choice and not by choice) staying single.
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Quote from Re3iRtH
How many men do you think would marry a single doctor in her 30s who was always ‘too busy’ for marriage or kids? Women generally want someone with higher income which is hard when you’re a radiologist 😉
Also ask, what male radiologist in his 30s wants to get married in residency when his income is about to 9X?
I don’t think it’s a surprise why you’re seeing more radiology residents than ever (by choice and not by choice) staying single.
What’s the most attractive age of woman to every decade of men?
20 year old man? 20 year old woman.
30 year old man? 20 year old woman.
40 year old man? 20 year old woman.
50 year old man? 20 year old woman. And so on, lol
What’s the most attractive man to a woman? In the US at this point, it’s a 6 foot bodybuilding billionaire, even if you are a 4. LOL. But seriously, the answer is usually, a taller man who is a little older than I am and makes more money than I do.
And people say men are complicated.
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Quote from Hospital-Rad
Agree with ECICNIR.
Recently I’ve come across a lot of single young rads in their 30s. It seems less paper get married by the end of residency these day which was unusual for my generation.
Anyway, if you have family and especially kids it’s very hard to move them to a random small town that you don’t know anybody. And if you are single, it is also stupid to move to a random small town where everyone woman is married and has 4 kids by the age of 28.
Also recently I have noticed a large number of radiologists who were not born here (many moved to US to go to college/med school or even came after med school). Most of these people strongly prefer to join their background community which usually live in coastal cities.
Due to these factors, big coastal cities like always will have a tough job market and is a great place for corporate radiology to thrive and grow.
My 2 cents.
H-Rad, do you travel to other countries, ever?-
Yes. Have visited 54 countries and lived in 3 different countries (besides US) in my life.
How come?-
FLOUNCE, where and when did you train? Did they track and keep a log of attending major discrepancies also?
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*occasional bad misses on call. Where I trained, they kept statistics on each residents major discrepancies on solo call for CT prelims.
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Quote from Flounce
*occasional bad misses on call. Where I trained, they kept statistics on each residents major discrepancies on solo call for CT prelims.
Shaming residents- interesting. Never seen it or heard of it before.
Seems like it could be effective but probably not acceptable to pc crowd.-
not shaming, its feedback. Your Stats were never discussed unless you were an outlier and then PD might say something to you. I graduated about 10 years ago. That Resident feedback/QA thing was built into PACS, in the morning when the attendings reading the overnights would read out the CTs, a dialog box allowed them to click on No discrepancy / minor discrepancy / major discrepancy, and more importantly, they could type in comments like, missed left Pcomm aneurysm or good job on the intramural hematoma. Usually no major discrepancy but good if humbling feedback on our prelims. Each of these entries help generated stats for each residents, and more importantly, you got an email from each entry made. So youd take solo call at the level 1 trauma center 5pm-7am, go home and sleep, and then wake up and check your email and feel kind of nauseous if there were numerous QA emails. But it was good learning as youd still remember the details of each case and would sometimes jot down the MRNs to look up the case and see how you screwed up. Those lessons tend to be particularly memorable, i.e, when you learn from a particular case. Ill never forget to look for impending downward herniation on a head CT after having missed one at 2am seven months into residency and the patient dying.
BTW, If anyone recognizes this residency, please preserve my anonymity and dont disclose.
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So I guess adoph (the killer of the old) and spanky (we know who that is) dont like romcoms.
I do.
Go figure. -
In this market, possible to get a CA job in desirable city from random program outside CA and no connections? If location is premium, tele or corporate always options?
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From browsing the ACR website it seems like the job market in CA is good.
Ill bet that the SALT tax deduction limitations and change in mortgage interest deduction have slightly negatively affected the attractiveness of CA for high earners.
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Seems crazy but job market in CA right now seems better than the midwest or the desirable parts of the south.
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A lot of the postings are central ca and radnet
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How are the radnet groups in orange county and los angeles (Beverly and/or Santa-Ana Tustin radiology group? Worth it for the lifestyle (no call/weekends/nights)?
Is working at Kaiser socal as per-diem for a year or two worth it before becoming a partner and getting in on the good benefits?
Any info on groups such as Raslo near SLO, Pueblo near Santa Barbara, Hoag in Newport/Irvine, Coast radiology in Laguna Niguel?
I have no debt and low 6 figures saved up from residency + moonlighting + investment gains. Even with 250K salary I can easily save 50% post tax income. Money is not the biggest concern. -
I am interested in the helpful info in this thread as well
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Saw ads on ACR recently for San Diego Medical Imaging. Seems like a solid group but I know nothing about SOCAL.
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I think I know which program Flounce is talking about. Rumor has it some IR fellowship grads from there recently had to take job out of CA despite wanting to stay.
I see that as a sign of strong quality control of the program and report trainees strength and weakness truthfully. I am sure if you do well there people will remember but the converse is true as well.
Seems tough and stressful to stay perfect for all four years.
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Quote from ar123
the desirable parts of the south.
Which ones are these?
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Quote from Sir Read Alot
is there even such a thing as a lower tier residency program in California?
Yes definitely. Even low tier. Have you heard of Hemet Valley Medical Center? Didn’t think so.
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