10th percentile for MGMA hospitalist is $225k (n = 5,100 doctors)--that figure is not including benefits or malpractice which is standard for any employed job. You need to combine quite a few choices to get a 10th percentile salary, even for a new grad.
Also, "undesirable" area does not automatically mean a town of 5,000 in Alaska. In terms of getting a better salary, it means a city of a few 100,000 up to 1 million in states like Indiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Arizona, Wisconsin, Ohio, etc. Perfectly livable places with good schools and plenty to do. If you can't be happy in a place like that for a few years, that is 100% on you, not on the location. If the only place someone can be happy is a top 10 US city...just wow.
In fact, the truly rural places like critical access hospitals that people commonly imagine when they say "outside a desirable area" often pay about the same as "desirable" cities or less, because they are low volume. True BFE places are often where ED and hospitalist shifts are 24 hours (or even 48 hours!) because you have so much free time to sleep. You are not going to generate many RVU's so you don't make as much per hour (hence the government subsidizing CAHs, but still you get the point).
