In light of the new Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2012 that was just released, I thought it was time to compile all the data on physician salaries into one place. There are many resources online that report average physician salaries, and many of them offer very different results. I recently wrote an article detailing the pros and the cons many of these online physician salary and compensation databases. However, it can be a bit tedious to go through all the work of visiting each website to compare results. So, I have done all the work for you. In this article I will present the physician salary by specialty data from all the reliable and relevant online physician salary databases. Feel free to compare and contrast the information presented by each different company.
Medscape Physician Compensation Report
In my opinion, the Medscape average physician salary report is the most reliable data on the internet. It represents more than 20,000 physician surveys answered by doctors in every specialty in every part of the country. See my article about the 2012 Medscape report to learn about all the great information they report in their results.
Careers In Medicine: Specialty Pages
Careers in Medicine (CiM) is a great resource for medical students and medical residents (link to my previous article about Careers in medicine). One of the greatest tools it provides is a list of salary information for each specialty. Careers in Medicine separates the compensation information using two very important distinctions: academic vs. private practice and starting salaries vs. established salaries. CiM obtains the academic salary information from the Association of American Medical Colleges AAMC Report on Medical School Faculty Salaries. The data about private practice salaries comes from the MGMA Physician Compensation Survey. Below, I have compiled a table of the salaries reported for each specialty. (Click here to download the formatted table) On the CiM website you can also see salary data for every sub-specialty; this is especially important for internal medicine, pediatrics, and general surgery where the sub-specialty choice results in very different salaries.
Compiled from the Careers in Medicine website, AAMC
Allied Physicians: Old Salary Survey
Many students use the alliedphysicians.com resource to learn about physician salaries by specialty. However, you should know that it has not been updated since 2006, so the information is likely a bit off now but the trends are still the same.
From alliedphysicians.com
Cejka Search
The Cejka Search Group is a great resource for salary information but also for job openings and employment information. Their physician salary survey is up-to-date and updated frequently. They freely publish their salary information in order to advertise the many physician job openings they have available.
Profiles Database Physician Salary Data
Profilesdatabase.com is another online physician recruitment company. They also publish their physician salary data freely in order to publicize their many job openings. Like the Cejka Search, these numbers are updated frequently and seem to be very reliable.
| Specialty |
National Average, Six Years in Practice |
Median Starting Range |
| Allergy & Immunology |
$246,000.00 |
$190,000.00 |
| Anesthesiology |
$360,000.00 |
$265,000.00 |
| Cardiac & Thoracic Surgery |
$522,875.00 |
$360,000.00 |
| Cardiology |
$402,000.00 |
$272,000.00 |
| Colon& Rectal Surgery |
$389,700.00 |
$290,000.00 |
| Critical Care Medicine |
$258,750.00 |
$198,000.00 |
| Dermatology |
$365,450.00 |
$234,000.00 |
| Diagnostic Radiology – Interventional |
$469,800.00 |
$335,000.00 |
| Diagnostic Radiology – Non-Interventional |
$444,850.00 |
$330,000.00 |
| Endocrinology |
$214,550.00 |
$165,000.00 |
| Family Medicine |
$199,850.00 |
$138,000.00 |
| Family Medicine – with Obstetrics |
$207,900.00 |
$142,000.00 |
| Gastroenterology |
$398,800.00 |
$272,000.00 |
| General Surgery |
$350,000.00 |
$225,000.00 |
| Gynecological Oncology |
$402,000.00 |
$300,000.00 |
| Gynecology |
$233,000.00 |
$210,000.00 |
| Gynecology & Obstetrics |
$279,750.00 |
$200,000.00 |
| Hematology & Medical Oncology |
$314,800.00 |
$222,000.00 |
| Hospitalist |
$210,950.00 |
$165,000.00 |
| Nephrology |
$252,000.00 |
$180,000.00 |
| Infectious Disease |
$225,000.00 |
$158,000.00 |
| Internal Medicine |
$208,790.00 |
$145,000.00 |
| Neonatology |
$275,400.00 |
$196,000.00 |
| Neurological Surgery |
$589,500.00 |
$395,000.00 |
| Neurology |
$237,000.00 |
$190,000.00 |
| Ophthalmology |
$248,000.00 |
$210,000.00 |
| Orthopedic Surgery |
$485,500.00 |
$315,000.00 |
| Orthopedic Surgery – Pediatrics |
$395,420.00 |
$318,000.00 |
| Orthopedic Surgery – Spine |
$625,000.00 |
$465,000.00 |
| Otolaryngology |
$350,000.00 |
$222,000.00 |
| Pediatric Cardiology |
$230,900.00 |
$189,000.00 |
| Pediatric Endocrinology |
$187,600.00 |
$170,000.00 |
| Pediatric Gastroenterology |
$230,500.00 |
$175,000.00 |
| Pediatric Hematology / Oncology |
$210,000.00 |
$175,000.00 |
| Pediatric Infectious Disease |
$205,00.00 |
$173,000.00 |
| Pediatric Intensive Care |
$252,500.00 |
$195,000.00 |
| Pediatric Nephrology |
$196,000.00 |
$172,000.00 |
| Pediatric Neurology |
$218,200.00 |
$182,000.00 |
| Pediatric Pulmonary Disease |
$190,000.00 |
$162,000.00 |
| Pediatric Surgery |
$401,000.00 |
$295,000.00 |
| Pediatrics |
$202,500.00 |
$162,000.00 |
| Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation |
$233,300.00 |
$178,000.00 |
| Plastic Surgery |
$382,000.00 |
$273,000.00 |
| Psychiatry |
$211,000.00 |
$165,000.00 |
| Psychiatry – Child |
$218,300.00 |
$159,000.00 |
| Pulmonary Disease |
$298,000.00 |
$191,500.00 |
| Rheumatology |
$220,500.00 |
$163,500.00 |
| Trauma Surgery |
$400,000.00 |
$298,000.00 |
| Urgent Care |
$215,000.00 |
$142,000.00 |
| Urology |
$400,000.00 |
$250,000.00 |
| Vascular Surgery |
$405,000.00 |
$259,400.00 |
Merritt Hawkins: Physician Salary By Specialty
Merritt Hawkins is a physician salary survey that reports the average starting salary offered to new residency graduates. The entire report for the year 2011 is available for free in PDF (click here). Remember, because these data represent new hires, the are STARTING SALARIES and should be compared to other reports accordingly. I will reprint the starting salaries of the 20 most highly recruited specialties below. The Merritt Hawkins PDF also reports the average signing bonus and average income guarantees. (If you are interested, I discuss the Merritt Hawkins report on the salaries of allied health professionals in another post)
From Merritt Hawkins Free PDF
My name is Andrew and I am a first year resident training to be an ophthalmologist. I created ShortWhiteCoats to provide medical students, residents, and the public with all the information I spent so many hours looking for during medical school.
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Tom
March 13, 2013 at 9:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Nice post.
You dont mention several other (not free) resources
MGMA reports are probably the most widely used by hospitals
there is also the Physician Salary & Benefits Report which you can also purchase
Andrew
March 30, 2013 at 8:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thanks, these are great additions to the list, if you want to pay the money for them
Mel
August 4, 2014 at 11:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have a question about ob/gyn compensation… Is malpractice insurance deducted from an ob/gyn's salary, or is it typically paid by an ob/gyn's practice?
Andrew
December 29, 2014 at 5:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This depends on the structure of a physicians practice. If the physician is self-employed, the malpractice insurance will be deducted from the bottom-line, which is essentially a direct hit on the physician’s salary. If the OB/GYN is employed, the malpractice is usually part of the employment package. So, employed OBs may feel a bit more protected from the huge cost of malpractice insurance, but all OBs are paying it in some form.
Taylor
March 16, 2015 at 2:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Any thoughts on the best place to obtain a salary breakdown that includes sub-specialty, region, practice type and years in practice? Specifically I am helping my wife, a female reconstuctive urology fellow, to get ready for her job search. Thanks! Taylor
Andrew
April 21, 2015 at 10:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The best site I have seen for this information is the annual Medscape Physician Salary Survey. They do it every year. It will not break things down into subspecialty very well. This type of information will be specific for each specialty and your wife’s associates and collegues would be the best sources of this information. Thanks, Andrew
Joe geary
July 9, 2015 at 11:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Are salaries and compensation used interchangeably? Typically compensation includes salary plus benefits. This Would make the research more clear.
Andrew
July 10, 2015 at 2:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is an important question. In general, estimating a physician’s “salary” is not an exact process. Many physicians are self-employed, so their “salary” would actually be the difference between their gross receipts minus their overhead (staff salaries and benefits, equipment costs, lease, etc.). In these situations, any estimate of “salary” will not be completely accurate. I say this simply to remind everyone that online lists of physician “salaries” are–at best–rough estimates.
It is my understanding that the salaries listed above are ONLY the cash that ends up in the physician’s bank account. Employed physicians are unlikely to report their benefits as part of these online surveys. So, I think it is reasonable to conclude that benefits would, on average, not be included in the above numbers.
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[…] See the excellent positings on this blog for average salaries. [Link from the Editor: The Ultimate Guide to Physician Salaries] […]
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June 7, 2015 at 3:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[…] the results of seven different companies’ physician salary survey results so you can compare. Download The Ultimate Guide To Physician Salaries | ShortWhiteCoats.com | […]
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June 11, 2015 at 7:27 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[…] the results of seven different companies’ physician salary survey results so you can compare. Download The Ultimate Guide To Physician Salaries | ShortWhiteCoats.com | […]