After looking at the salary forecast and seeing endocrinologists’ average salary being lower than the average family med doc
Based on the 2018 Medscape Compensation Report, were talking a $7k difference on average, which I am positive is pretty negligible when you look at the ranges of salaries for each specialty. And even then, there is more to life than money, especially when you're talking the difference between $219k and $212k.
Why you wouldn’t just go FM and see lots of patients with diabetes and thyroid issues.
1. Why specialize in anything? Its because you want to narrow your focus to an area that interests you. If you're not as interested in OB/peds/managing a patient's full range of issues as you are with just endocrine issues, then it makes sense to specialize.
2. Specialists get the more complex cases.
3. While a lot of endocrine is Diabetes/Thyroid issues, you also are also going to be in a position to manage rarer/more interesting endocrine cases, which is good especially if you are someone who is genuinely interested in endocrine disorders
4. In theory you can do FM and set up your practice heavily around endocrine issues, but as a new FM doc just out of residency catching on with a group, that is easier said than done. You're not really going to be in a position where you can pick and choose your patients or you're going to risk not seeing enough people to make that fancy $219k.
5. Anecdotally, I found at diabetes visits with an endocrinologist, we talk about the patient's diabetes. At diabetes visits with a family med doc, we talk about the patient's diabetes, and their hypertension, and their allergies, and their sore shoulder, and why they really need to schedule their colonoscopy and get their new shingles vaccine. So if all that other health maintenance stuff isn't what you want, then you might prefer endocrinology over family medicine.
