IN THIS YEAR’S Today’s Hospitalist Career & Compensation Survey, pediatric hospitalists reported earning a mean comp of $211,000 for 2021. Our survey results also included these data points shown in both slide show and text:
Hours and shifts worked: One out of four pediatric hospitalists (24.8%) said they work a seven-on/seven-shift. But the majority (71.6%) report working some other daytime shift, while 3.5% say they work only nights.
One-third reported working 12-hour shifts (35.3%), and one-quarter (24.3%) work 13 or more hours per shift. One in five work 10- 11-hour shifts, while the remainder (20.5%) work nine or less hours per shift. On average, pediatric hospitalists reported working 12.9 hours per shift.
One in four (25.2%) say they work between 10 and 13 shifts per month, but a much larger percentage (38.5%) said they work 14 to 16 shifts per month. One in five (21.5%) report working 17 shifts a month or more, while 14.8% report working nine shifts or fewer. Full-time pediatric and adult hospitalists report working the same hours per month (about 175 on average).
Workload: As for patient encounters per day, pediatric hospitalists on average treat 13 patients per shift. The majority (42.9%) reported between 10 and 14 patient encounters per day, while 20.6% said they have between one and nine patient encounters per day. Just under one-fifth (19.8%) reported 15 to 17 patient encounters per day, and 16.7% reported more than 18 patient encounters daily.
A minority of pediatric hospitalists—20%—are in the ICU, with 12.8% serving as an attending compared to 7.1% who work in an ICU but not as an attending.
Career satisfaction: One in four pediatric hospitalists (25.6%) reported they were very satisfied with their career vs. only 16.2% of nonacademic full-time hospitalists treating adults. About half (55.2%) reported being satisfied or somewhat satisfied. On that same scale, 13.6% admitted they were somewhat dissatisfied, while 5.6% said they were very unsatisfied.
Pediatric hospitalists reported working a mean of 10.4 years in hospital medicine compared to a mean of 11.1 for nonacademic full-time doctors. Pediatric hospitalists had the least turnover, working a mean of 8.8 years at their current position vs. 7.6 years for nonacademic hospitalists and 6.6 years for academic hospitalists.
Demographics: Two out of three pediatric hospitalists are female, and the average pediatric hospitalist is 43 years old. Regionally, one in four pediatric hospitalists work on the West coast (25.6%). The Midwest employs 20% of pediatric hospitalists in the U.S., followed by the South (17.6%), then the Northeast (16.8%) and finally the Southwest (17%) and Mountain region (8%).
Want to know more? An executive summary of pediatric hospitalist survey results is available for purchase here.
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