Academic Medicine Open Forum

• Three years of compensation data
• Access data from any device with internet access
• View, download, and print each table
• Detailed data breakouts (such as compensation by gender and race/ethnicity)

• Three years of compensation data
• Access data from any device with internet access
• View, download, and print each table
• Detailed data breakouts (such as compensation by gender and race/ethnicity)

• Three years of compensation data
• Access data from any device with internet access
• View, download, and print each table
• Detailed data breakouts (such as compensation by gender and race/ethnicity)

As a faculty member, I agree entirely with @Megan von Isenburg that it is unfortunate that libraries can no longer purchase the report for institutional users. Although faculty can purchase the online version, $50 is not an insignificant cost especially when most faculty are only interested in the figures that are relevant to them, which are a very small fraction of the full report.  As Megan noted, the individuals who will be most disadvantaged by this approach are from groups that are already known to experience inequities in compensation in academic medicine.  Making the report available to libraries, albeit at a substantial cost, was one way to support more equitable access to this information. 

I recognize that the change to an electronic format is recent but the usability of the data filtering, visualization, and download formatting could be significantly improved with a minimum of effort. Since individual faculty now have to pay $50 to access this information rather than obtaining it through our institutional libraries, we shouldn't also have to spend valuable time in extracting the information that we want to see.  

Currently, one has to click on each year and then on each relevant institution type (All, Public or Private, Geographic location) to view or download the relevant information (9 displays for the institution type section alone).  In addition, one has to scroll through a lengthy list of unwanted departmental information to reach the department or departmental subset that one wants.

I can't tell if the site is using Tableau or a similar visualization software, but a multi-select filtering approach is clearly possible (see the Faculty Rank drop down in the display for Compensation by Gender and Race/Ethnicity).  As an easy change, filters at the top of Compensation by Medical School Type, Compensation by Gender and Race/Ethnicity, and Compensation Trends should include multi-select options for:

• Year (except for trends)
• Institution type
• Faculty rank
• Department, and subsets of dept.

The gender and race/ethnicity columns and their associated filters could be added to the compensation trends and compensation by medical school type to further consolidate the data and speed access to desired information.

In terms of the downloadable CSV files, these should be formatted in a consistent fashion to facilitate ease of use.  For example, the 2020 data is expressed in thousands of dollars rather than the specific amount (as with the 2021 and 2022 data). I recognize that this is how the original tables were done but this could easily be fixed in the underlying data tables (with a notation about differences in the significant digits of the figures).  Also the mean values in the CSV are in text format whereas the other values are in a numeric format. Consequently, the user either needs to know how to transform text to numbers in Excel or retype all of those figures. Again, this could easily be fixed in the underlying data tables. 

Finally, to permit easier visualization of the range of compensation values as well as the relative changes in values, the graphical display of compensation trends would preferably allow one to see changes in 25th and 75th percentiles as well as mean and median on the same graph, in addition to being more specific (with filtering by department or department subgroup as well as by rank, institution type, gender, and race/ethnicity).

Again, I recognize this is a work in progress but hope that consideration will be given to making this resource more usable for all and that library purchase options will be reinstated.  

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Laura Fochtmann
Distinguished Service Professor
Stony Brook University

Opinions are my own.

Original Message:
Sent: 02-08-2023 12:00:03 PM
From: Stephanie Weiner
Subject: Tip Tuesday: Accessing the new AAMC Faculty Salary Report

Thanks for your feedback, @Megan von Isenburg! We've shared your comment with our colleagues who work with faculty & compensation data.​

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Stephanie Weiner
Director, Digital Strategy & Engagement
Association of American Medical Colleges

Original Message:
Sent: 02-08-2023 09:49:15 AM
From: Megan von Isenburg
Subject: Tip Tuesday: Accessing the new AAMC Faculty Salary Report

Good morning!

While I applaud the move to digital for this report, as a librarian, I regret that there is no longer a way for libraries to purchase this report for their institutional users. The Faculty Salary Report had been a popular item in our print collection and a service that we have offered to our faculty for years. Being able to offer it centrally at no cost to faculty remains important for providing equitable access to the data, particularly for early career or under-represented faculty/future faculty.

Thank you,
Megan

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Megan von Isenburg
Associate Dean, Library Services and Archives
Duke University School of Medicine

Original Message:
Sent: 02-07-2023 03:44:25 PM
From: Stephanie Weiner
Subject: Tip Tuesday: Accessing the new AAMC Faculty Salary Report

The updated, annual AAMC Faculty Salary Report is now available. The report provides compensation data from the FY 2022 survey of 153 accredited U.S. medical schools and breaks out total compensation by degree, rank, department/specialty, medical school type, region, gender, and race/ethnicity.

Who is this report for? It's designed for both individuals intending to negotiate their salary or make informed career decisions, and for institutional decision-makers engaged in benchmarking and strategic planning for their department or institution.

Access the Report (This product is discounted for faculty and staff at AAMC member institutions. Please sign in to the AAMC Store to access member pricing).

The online version of this product offers significant benefits, including:

• Three years of compensation data
• Access data from any device with internet access
• View, download, and print each table
• Detailed data breakouts (such as compensation by gender and race/ethnicity)

Interested in learning more about salary equity issues? The AAMC has developed a set of tools and resources for institutions.

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Stephanie Weiner
Director, Digital Strategy & Engagement
Association of American Medical Colleges
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