My First Job, My Salary, My Income

After finishing residency I came out to where I am now and am quite happy with where I landed. We live in California Xurbia (rural area with a surburban feel) about an hour from 2 major metropolis'. Lots of families, close shopping, fresh air and lots of new homes. It's a commuter area in that most peoplehere (although not me) commute that 1 hour (more for traffic) and live here for the cheaper housing and to raise their family. This is not for everybody... but it is for me and so we are happy to be here.

As stated in my first post, my salary is $115,000 with $5,000 raises for 3 years. I received a $5,000 signing bonus that we used for our move. My benefits include full health, dental and vision for our whole family (all premiums paid); disability insurance (short and long); full malpractice including tail coverage; $4500 CME; 2 weeks paid vacation and 1 week CME vacation. My call is about 1 in 5 with 1 weekend in 6 weeks. Call includes advice calls for patients as well as hospital coverage for admissions. There are about 10 physicians total in the group and they are all quite nice and fair. Although I would have loved a higher starting salary (money is money) there is nothing to complain about.

I supplement my current salary by working after hours here at the group. The hours are 6-9 Monday to Friday and 10-2 Saturday and Sunday. I try to work twice a week for the extra pay which is $80/hour that is folded into my paycheck (not seperate).

My contract is 3 years (I am almost into year 2) after which time I am hoping to be asked to become a partner. Now I have not a clue as to how this partnership thing works really. I mean ,I understand I will get/buy shares of the company and then revenue after all bills have been settled will be income divided among the partners based upon shares. But how the taxes work, when the income gets distributed, ?'s for me.

If anybody were to look at this post, I'd be curious to hear what you thought overall. If you were getting better, less, more... it would be interesting to compare.