Also you need to read the footnotes. The average practice covered by this survey is a practice with "272 physicians and 13 satellite locations". So basically it is a survey of huge practices, and truncates out all of the smaller practices with the practice incomes. You can basically assume that every amount on this survey is higher than reality.
I think Winged Scapula hit the nail on the head. If the data is being published by a jobsearch/employment agency, you cannot believe it. Their goal is to post something that will get you to call them to try to make a job change. They won't lure someone out of a good position with mediocre figures. So they have to post the highest amounts they can post with a straight face. And these employment search firms often use the "bait and switch" motif. They post some crazy high salary, and then when you call, that job is already taken, but they have one "almost as good" at half the salary and twice the hours. Don't get sucked in. If an employment search firm publishes a salary, you can assume this is the absolute highest salary or average they could concoct, and thus nothing you will ever see in reality. Such is the nature of this business.
As for things like Monster, you have to realize that nobody gets a physician job through this kind of site, so their access to data is poor. The best numbers you are going to get are going to be survey data published in medical periodicals. Every decade or so JAMA and other publishers publish data on work hours and salaries by various specialties, if only to show whether salaries are going up or down. That's probably the best data you are going to get. However survey data by it's nature tends to run a bit higher than reality, as people embarrassed about their lower end salary are less likely to respond to surveys about their salary as those who are proud of it. That's just human nature.
