12 Jan Most Biomedical PostDocs Lose Out on Salary and Tenure

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Prof. Shulamit Kahn

Prof. Shulamit (Shu) Kahn
Department of Markets, Public Policy and Law
Questrom School of Business
Boston University

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: We started this research because Donna Ginther (Kansas) and I had an NIH R01 to study gender differences in biomedical careers. We quickly discovered that a major problem for women was the fact that between many years of graduate study and long postdocs, their biological clocks had almost expired before they would have a decent amount of time in their lives to think about having children.

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: Most – 80% — of PhD graduates in biomedicine who take postdocs will not end up in a tenure-track job. Nevertheless, more than 80% of biomedical PhD recipients do take postdocs. For the 80% who don’t end up in tenure-track jobs but rather in staff scientist or industry jobs, the postdoc will not increase their salary beyond what they’d get if they started right after the PhD. So not only do they lose the $29,000 foregone salary every one of the 4.5 years (on average) that they are in a postdoc, but they lose those four years of salary growth in the workplace.

The bottom line is an average loss ranging from $128,000 if they go into non-tenure-track academic research to $249,000 if they go into industry (all numbers in discounted present value).

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Response: It would be great if researchers could compare postdocs in biomedicine to those in other STEM fields. Biomedicine is particular because the number of academic jobs can’t begin to keep up with the huge growth in PhDs, because such a high proportion have been starting in postdocs for so long, and because there are so many alternative research jobs, particularly in industry.

Also, our research did not include MD-PhDs, who are much less likely to enter postdocs. It would be interesting to compare MD-PhDs’ careers with people with “just” PhDs.

MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Response: No disclosures. And I think that the message to graduate students is pretty obvious. But I would add a message to PhD advisers and PIs currently supervising postdocs: Perhaps you could sit down with your graduate students/postdocs and talk to them about the alternative career tracks that they could take, including the many opportunities available to do important research. And tell them frankly whether you think they have little chance for an academic tenure-track job. Have them think about what is realistically best for them, and they will thank you for it.

MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.

Citation:

Shulamit Kahn, Donna K Ginther. The impact of postdoctoral training on early careers in biomedicine. Nature Biotechnology, 2017; 35 (1): 90 DOI: 10.1038/nbt.3766
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v35/n1/full/nbt.3766.html

Note: Content is Not intended as medical advice. Please consult your health care provider regarding your specific medical condition and questions.

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Last Updated on January 12, 2017 by Marie Benz MD FAAD