Best Salaries in medicine?

Started by greensoup
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greensoup

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Is there a list of the top 10 or 20 or so fields in medicine for salary?

I just want to get a feel of the real world market in medicine (not actually doing medicine, just curious).

I have looked up some top paying jobs but their numbers seem fishy. I figure I'd come to the place with REAL knowledgeable people who are in the field!

Thank you for your time and your help in this thread!
 
greensoup said:
Is there a list of the top 10 or 20 or so fields in medicine for salary?

I just want to get a feel of the real world market in medicine (not actually doing medicine, just curious).

I have looked up some top paying jobs but their numbers seem fishy. I figure I'd come to the place with REAL knowledgeable people who are in the field!

Thank you for your time and your help in this thread!
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greensoup said:
MD is very general and can cover a broad range of fields. Once you get into medical school, what are some of the paths people tend to take (specialization)?
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:welcome:
 
greensoup said:
Is there a list of the top 10 or 20 or so fields in medicine for salary?

I just want to get a feel of the real world market in medicine (not actually doing medicine, just curious).

I have looked up some top paying jobs but their numbers seem fishy. I figure I'd come to the place with REAL knowledgeable people who are in the field!

Thank you for your time and your help in this thread!
Click to expand...

facepalm.gif
 
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Top paying salaries are things like Orthopedic surgery, Radiation Oncology, Neurological Surgery. Now that wasn't so hard to say (and btw, i am not interested in any of those 3)
 
greensoup said:
Is there a list of the top 10 or 20 or so fields in medicine for salary?

I just want to get a feel of the real world market in medicine (not actually doing medicine, just curious).

I have looked up some top paying jobs but their numbers seem fishy. I figure I'd come to the place with REAL knowledgeable people who are in the field!

Thank you for your time and your help in this thread!
Click to expand...

Family practice.

Rich-Doctor.jpg
 
Why so many facepalms? Are those who are not in the medical field unfortunately shunned here? 🙁

Thanks uppereastside. How commonly do people enter those positions? Seems like family doctor is the most common goal of Med students
 
greensoup said:
Why so many facepalms? Are those who are not in the medical field unfortunately shunned here? 🙁

Thanks uppereastside. How commonly do people enter those positions? Seems like family doctor is the most common goal of Med students
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It's because you have your status set as 'Fellow.' A fellow is a fully-licensed MD who is doing additional training in order to become even further specialized within their field. If you actually were a fellow, you would be intimately familiar with the compensation that you would be expected to achieve upon becoming an attending.
 
Astarael said:
It's because you have your status set as 'Fellow.' A fellow is a fully-licensed MD who is doing additional training in order to become even further specialized within their field. If you actually were a fellow, you would be intimately familiar with the compensation that you would be expected to achieve upon becoming an attending.
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Woops. Fellow [Any field] sounded like a random 'fellow' in any field.
 
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plz wikipedia Ken Jeong MD. i believe he has one of the highest compensation of all hm....people with MD degrees 🙂.
 
greensoup said:
Woops. Fellow [Any field] sounded like a random 'fellow' in any field.
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LOL seriously funny:laugh: I think they meant by any field was any field of medicine (e.g, Cardiology, Neonatalogy, Plastics etc.)

It's okay. As for your question. IDK, but there is this one place on the web called google. that could help.
 
ppl should learn to not post responses if they can't contribute to the thread. 17 replies to op, and only one person was helpful around post 5 or 6.

17 posts woulda been enough for a full dissection with regards to specific high paying regions, urban centers that pay even more than NY or LA, hidden costs (a specific state with avg insurance permium of 100k/yr for a primary care field!), rising specialties, bad specialties, and specific tax breaks. I'm atleast partially informed so i'm not missing much.

op, this article is pretty much a very general overview or salaries and shoulda been the first response in this thread before more details are discussed.
https://www.aamc.org/download/48732/data/compensation.pdf
 
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While I'm not going to sit here and tell you that salary doesn't matter, I think it would be a huge mistake to pick a field based on salary alone. Not because their is anything morally wrong with that, but because of how rapidly salaries can change in medicine and how little control doctors have in the process.

CT surgeons used to make almost a million a year, but combo of declining reimbursements for CABG and reduced volume from stenting lead to massive salary drops and now recent grads have trouble finding jobs.

On the other hand, development of new imaging modalities and massive increases in utilization of imaging led to radiologists making bank. That may drop in the future as reimbursement for reads gets cut.

The moral is that salaries for any given field can rise and fall (fall seems more common these days). What they can't take away is your interest and passion for a field and whether you enjoy your work.
 
Neurosurgery, ortho, radiology, plastics, interventional radiology or cardiology, GI, ENT, etc.
 
I think Rads make the most on average. I've heard of an internist that makes 400K. It all depends on the person.
 
Here are the most reputable sources I have come across for salary information for different specialties. Most if not all of them are based off of practicing physicians who answer and return questionaires. One of them I think is more indicative of what you could make starting out as it reports the salaries organizations use to recruit new doctors (It is the longest one). I will add to my list the AAMC link if it ever loads haha

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos074.htm

http://www.merritthawkins.com/pdf/mha2009incentivesurvey.pdf

http://www.cejkasearch.com/compensation/amga_physician_compensation_survey.htm

Highest paid (averages) are going to be orthopedic surgeons, especially joint replacement and spine surgery.

Lowest is usually family practice or pediatrics. I've sometimes heard anecdotally that psychiatry is mentioned but I would trust the sources above much more than that.
 
i love how you can see the members that are currently ghosting this thread below.

btw, people here say they want to go into family medicine, and most students lie their asses off when applying saying that they want to go into internal med/ family med/ rural medicine because the need and lower wages. However, as soon as they take their step 1 and M3 comes around, more and more poeple decide- oh im not interested in that anymore, i want to go into ortho/plastics/radiation oncology.


SAME **** with HHMI fellows. After they get their prestegious fellowships which are meant to gear them toward a track of biomedical research, they decide oh im not interested anymore in research. (again not all, it's just really common)
 
donttazemebro said:
ppl should learn to not post responses if they can't contribute to the thread. 17 replies to op, and only one person was helpful around post 5 or 6.

17 posts woulda been enough for a full dissection with regards to specific high paying regions, urban centers that pay even more than NY or LA, hidden costs (a specific state with avg insurance permium of 100k/yr for a primary care field!), rising specialties, bad specialties, and specific tax breaks. I'm atleast partially informed so i'm not missing much. https://www.aamc.org/download/48732/data/compensation.pdf
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There's a reason why the OP got so many unhelpful responses. He/she started three threads asking somewhat similar questions around 12:30 CST with his/her status set to 'Fellow.' While the OP was polite, I think a lot of people on this forum expect a minimum amount of research to be done on your own before you begin to ask questions.
 
Astarael said:
There's a reason why the OP got so many unhelpful responses. He/she started three threads asking somewhat similar questions around 12:30 CST with his/her status set to 'Fellow.' While the OP was polite, I think a lot of people on this forum expect a minimum amount of research to be done on your own before you begin to ask questions.
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+1 All of the questions could have been googled, although the OP sort of admitted this. When someone has a post count of 3 and they are all thread originations, that's not a good sign.

Also, saying "I'm not going into medicine but I want to know what specialties pay the best, what tracks I could take to get there, and how healthcare reform might affect physician pay..." could easily be taken for trolling. I think the OP's pleasant naïveté actually staved off some hostility.
 
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I'm definitely in it for the money. Once I get into medical school, I will be competing with thousands and thousands of people for a tough spot in Family Medicine or Internal Medicine. That's where the big bucks are at... 😀
 
Congenital Cardiac Surgeons can have salaries that run over $1 million...in some states, the only state employees (since the surgeons are only going to be associated with tertiary/quaternary referral academic medical centers) who make more than they do are the football and basketball coaches at the D-1 Universities...
 
BigRedBeta said:
Congenital Cardiac Surgeons can have salaries that run over $1 million...in some states, the only state employees (since the surgeons are only going to be associated with tertiary/quaternary referral academic medical centers) who make more than they do are the football and basketball coaches at the D-1 Universities...
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None of the physicians at the academic centers I've worked at are state employees. They've all been members of a large physician group.

If that's what the peds cardiac surgeons make, then more power to them. That's probably the most impressive field in medicine to me.
 
Jesus guys, ever thought of actually answering the question.

Orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, opthamologists (probably one people wouldn't have guessed), radiologists, plastic surge, and several other surgical subspecialties.

As a general rule of thumb, the more procedures a specialty does, the more money they'll make.

Also, some normally low paying fields can produce a lot of money for people who set up cash only practices, however the market for such practices can be saturated pretty quickly, as only so many people can really afford to pay cash.
 
the duck said:
Jesus guys, ever thought of actually answering the question.
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I'm pretty sure it's been answered.

RNwantDO said:
https://www.aamc.org/students/medstudents/cim/specialties/
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organdonor said:
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos074.htm

http://www.merritthawkins.com/pdf/mha2009incentivesurvey.pdf

http://www.cejkasearch.com/compensation/amga_physician_compensation_survey.htm

Highest paid (averages) are going to be orthopedic surgeons, especially joint replacement and spine surgery.

Lowest is usually family practice or pediatrics. I've sometimes heard anecdotally that psychiatry is mentioned but I would trust the sources above much more than that.
Click to expand...

TheProwler said:
Neurosurgery, ortho, radiology, plastics, interventional radiology or cardiology, GI, ENT, etc.
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UpperEastSide said:
Top paying salaries are things like Orthopedic surgery, Radiation Oncology, Neurological Surgery. Now that wasn't so hard to say (and btw, i am not interested in any of those 3)
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Caesar said:
SDN Mod - 20,000,000 / week.
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😀


Even on the slowest day this wasn't worth the bump.


Cypher321 said:
..jaggggggggg....
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😕

I believe an epicfacepalm.jpg is appropriate here.
 
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Patient: Doc, I have a sore throat.

Doctor: Ugh, I just told the last three patients they have a cold. Why didn't you just ask them, idiot? Don't waste my time.


Slightly different situation, but I've made my point.


OP, I am in agreement with the previous posters in that generally, the highest paid physicians practice neurosurgery, ortho, radiology, or plastics.
 
dice404 said:
Patient: Doc, I have a sore throat.

Doctor: Ugh, I just told the last three patients they have a cold. Why didn't you just ask them, idiot? Don't waste my time.


Slightly different situation, but I've made my point.
Click to expand...

This reminds me of whenever I'd forget to put my dirty clothes in the hamper or something growing up and my dad (a surgeon) would say, "If I accidentally left a lap pad in someone at work, he would DIE!"
 
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