Evidence from the Ontario Public Sector Salary Disclosure, the so-called “Sunshine List”, shows that pathologists in Ontario saw an average salary increase in 2013 of 20-25% over the previous year. This average for the entire list was 2.2%.

Appearing in both the 2013 and 2012 disclosures, 195 pathologists saw their average package (salary + taxable benefits) increase by $57k or 20.6% from $280k to $337k. The top 200 earning pathologists in 2012 averaged $348k, a 25.4% increase over 2011.

Ontario Public Salary Disclosure

Every year since 1996, the Ontario Ministry of Finance has released a list of all public sector employees who earned more than $100,000 in the previous year.

Why?

So what's happening here? Why are pathologists seeing a 25% raise while the rest of the list shows a very reasonable growth of 2.2%?

At this point all we have are hypotheses. Analysis of the publicly available data has uncovered a surprising feature, and further investigation is required to find the cause. This is exactly the sort of process we should expect from an open government/open data initiative like the Sunshine List.

Detail

The positions in the data mapped to pathologist were:

• Pathologist

• Pathologist / Pathologiste

• Pathologist Laboratory Medical Director and Chief of Medical Staff

• Pathologist/Laboratory Medical Director

• Pathologist/ Anatomopathologiste

• Pathologist – Pathology / Pathologiste

• Associate Director Pathology / Directrice adjointe Pathologie

• Neuropathologist / Professor

• Neuropathologist

• Laboratory Pathologist / Pathologiste du laboratoire

• Laboratory Pathologist/Pathologiste du laboratoire

• Medical Director Clinical Lab Services / Pathologiste

• Pathologist/Pathologiste

• Associate Director Pathology / Directeur adjoint Pathologie

• Associate Pathologist / Pathologiste adjoint

• Associate Pathologist/Pathologiste adjoint

• Senior Associate Pathologist

• Senior Associate Pathologist / Pathologiste associé(e) principal(e)

• Division Head Haematopathology

• Chief Pathology & Laboratory Director

• Associate Pathologist

• Associate Pathologist / Pathologiste associé(e)

• Pathologist and Director Laboratory Medicine

• Pathologist/Director Laboratory Medicine

• Director Pathology / Directeur Pathologie

• Pathologist–in–Chief

• Pathologist-in-Chief

• Associate Head of Pathology

• Associate Head Pathology

• Division Head Pathology

• Pathologist – General / Pathologiste général

• Pathologist - General/Pathologiste général

• Anatomical Pathologist / Anatomopathologiste

• Anatomical Pathologist/Anatompoathologiste

• Chief Pathologist

• Administrative Director Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

• Senior Pathologists Assistant

• Speech Pathologist – Voice

• Speech Pathologist Voice

• Administrative Director Pathology & Laboratory Medicine

• Haematopathologist

• Senior Manager Pathology & Laboratory Medicine

• Anatomic Pathologist / Professor

• Pathologist & Discipline Director

Sources:

http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/pssd/