HandJob,

Salary is easy to find on frieda or on program sites. You can go to bestplaces.net. This site allows to compare cities in many aspects. Cost of Living is one of the comparisons. My understanding is that resident salary is pretty much the same for the same year of training (some variation of course). However, perks may vary greatly. Just my understanding ...

What a great question! Glad to know I am not the only one incorporating this info into my selection process. I have not found a better way than the one described above, but I might issue a warning. I have become a little dubious of FREIDA. The salary info is off for many, although a few hundred rocks this way or that may not make a big difference. What concerns me that I think that much of the "perks" section, like insurance for applicants, dependants, dental, etc., seems to be way off. I think I am going to call programs directly and inquire. I would be happy to share what I find out, and hopefully, others will do the same.
-BD

I took salary into account when ranking programs. I used bestplaces.net to get a percentage of cost of living compared to the city where I went to school since I knew how far money really went in that city. Then multiplied that factor times the salary at a program averaged over five years to get a "real salary", or an approximation of what my salary would be like in the town I currently lived in. Contrary to what some people say, I found significant variation in salaries among programs and it doesn't always go up in a manner commensurate with increased cost of living. For example, last year the intern salary at UTSW was like 32.5K/yr, while at Lenox Hill it was like 47k. Big difference. While New York is way more expensive to live in, most programs there subsidize housing costs as well, which makes it a bit more complicated to compare.

The real difficulty is comparing benefits. While you can easily find out what benefits you will get, it is much more time consuming to quantify what those benefits will be worth to you because you have to compare insurance costs etc in each locale. Benefits packages vary on a very wide scale, which makes it even more difficult to compare. The ability and opportunities for moonlighting are yet another complicating variable that is extremely difficult to quantify. Bottom line is that it is very difficult to get a real handle on how you will live as a resident money-wise.

In the end I don't think this should be a big factor in your ranking, but if you have plenty of time and the inclination to do the research it can help you sort out the midle and bottom thirds of your rank list. The top part should be all about where you think you will fit in and get the best training for your long term career goals.

Good luck.

Another great site for city information and salary comparison is: www.homefair.com You can also look into housing from this site.

Thanks for all the input. I will also have to take into consideration what the schools will be like for my kids and what the job market will be like for my wife. These are pretty important factors for me. I know that I will probably be happy as long as I am doing ortho. I want to make sure that my family is happy too.

Hey,

Can anyone specifically state benefits for particular programs? Do particular programs have standard policies, or is it pretty variable from resident to resident? Personally, the most important issue for me is how much of dependents health care is covered. I have a wife and two kids, with a third on the way, and it is a bigger issue to me than most applicants. In my opinion, no better way to indicate a program's family friendliness than to put its money where its mouth is and provide health care to one's family members. I really do not trust a one word answer from FRIEDA on such an important issue. Since salaries are pretty much a wash across the nation, this is one of the biggest places to sift out the programs which take care of their residents and those that do not.

Thanks.

Jumper's Knees,

Are you a paratrooper?

j knees,

I am at a program that takes care of its residents and dependants very well - as in health insurance (70-30) at no cost to me, AND pays the 30 for outpatient and inpatient costs. I would like to stay anonymous, so pm me with questions.