It largely depends how much you work, where you work, and what work you're doing. But very generally speaking...
Permanent Staff Specialist positions at public hospitals are hard to come by because you have to wait for someone to retire before they offer the position, and there are a lot of people waiting in line to compete for the one position when it opens up; so you have to be very experienced (with years of practice) or over-qualified (with research PhD, academic affiliation, etc.) to be considered, especially with Internal Medicine and its subspecialities. But if you get it, it's very good gig, including base salary and all the benefits attached, these positions can fetch you about $400-500K per year, assuming you work full-time. If you can't get a permanent position, they sometimes offer temporary full-time or part-time 6 month contracts that are renewable; or, you can sign on to an ad-hoc Visiting Medical Officer contract, where you're basically paid as a casual contractor at about $200+ per hour.
Most clinicians in reality only work part-time as hospital Staff Specialists, because the potential for more money to be made is in private practice. It is a headache initially to start-up your own business -- because let's face it, private practice is a business at the end of the day -- but after about 5 years, you would have built-up a group of regular patients that keep you busy throughout the year. In full time private practice, you could make $500K to $1+mil a year.
I would like to also note that 'procedural' specialists, such as Gastroenterologists who do lots of endoscopy, tend to be able to make more money as well.
In terms of job outlook for both: Well it's good. There will always be people having strokes and needing their bowels checked for cancer. So the prospect for these specialties to be in business is reassuring. If you're a brainey nerdy guy who likes dealing with complex issues that never can be actually fixed then Neurology is your thing, because the reality is that the majority of your work is vascular strokes, epilepsy, motor neuron disease, headaches. If you don't mind talking about people's bowel habits and sticking cameras down their mouth and up their bums, and dealing with mostly IBD, reflux, biliary tree and liver disease, and bowel cancers, then Gastroenterologist is your thing.
And just a reminder: The reality is that any specialty in medicine will pay you well. Pick a specialty you can see yourself doing as a job until you retire. Don't pick it based on how much coin you can get.
How much would a new fellow make? Also I hear that fractional appointments are common due to lack of jobs, is this common? What's the job outlook for both of these specialties in Australia? Thanks!
