President’s Letter from Bill Steinbach – Comprehensive Peds ID FTE Workload and Compensation

One major, achievable goal for our Society is to accurately document the myriad clinical activities we do in our specialty and then advocate for appropriate compensation. We are not pushing for our colleagues to work less and be paid more – that mantra will understandably fall flat and only does our field a disservice. Instead, we are undertaking the needed steps and investing the necessary resources to comprehensively define workloads. Armed with that information we will then propose national standards. 

This has never been done before in our subfield, and there is a reason for that: it is really hard. Some may recall two initial surveys of Division Chiefs in 2019 aiming to help define clinical FTE and compensation. While those were a nice maiden voyage, they only showcased the vast heterogeneity of our field and sheer complexity of the problem and led to little actionable data (as the person who led those surveys, I feel I can say this honestly). Others may recall a similar themed effort undertaken by our colleagues at IDSA that requested our input. Unfortunately, that included a limited number of questions that really pertained to pediatric ID providers or our types of practice. After witnessing how the IDSA adventure unfolded, we determined we can use some of that information, but we need to do this ourselves to get the information we really need. 

There are some fields that have done a better job gauging their workloads and adequate compensation, and those are classically hours-based fields (Emergency Medicine, Hospital Medicine, NICU, PICU, etc.). Specialties that include inpatient, outpatient, consults, call, and countless other patient face-to-face and non-face time efforts like ours present complex obstacles to weighting for clinical FTE and defined workloads. 

Hospital Medicine, for example, developed a comprehensive framework and extensive report after employing a professional survey design company and taking several years to get it right. PIDS intends to use this as our model in defining our own clinical FTE standards. Our Board has determined this is a worthy investment of capital and time, and we have begun working with professionals to make sure we do this correctly. We have also designed this to not only capture the current state of pediatric ID, but also lead us to proposing a future optimal, replicable state. 

Modern healthcare is not getting easier. We are investing in our Society by working to advocate an approach that will be data-driven and allow leaders (hospital CEOs, Chairs, Deans, etc.) to leverage this new national data from our specific subspecialty society in order to inform them of market norms. When this survey kicks off later in 2025, after more intense planning, the key will be to leverage a near 100% completion rate amongst all of you, our Division Chiefs and members alike. Surveys to Chiefs will focus on multiple operational and financial details. In turn, surveys to each PIDS member will be able to address additional concerns for our field.

The ultimate goal is accurate and modern data to inform and advocate for pediatric ID. This has to be developed scientifically, to be comprehensive and valid, much like any other experimental design so that the results can be trusted. An opinion piece that states everyone should pay us more is not helpful nor politically wise, but country-wide, scale-accurate and verified information will be powerful for generating impactful change. 

All this to say, when you are asked to fill out a PIDS survey on this soon, we’re counting on you to answer that call. Your Society is advocating for you.