Median Physicians' Salaries - Health Blog - WSJ

Median Physicians' Salaries - Health Blog - WSJ:

"Good news for med students worried about their debt loads: Physicians coming out of residencies last year reported increases in their starting salaries in many specialties, according to a survey by the Medical Group Management Association, a trade group for medical groups.

"Here are the specialties with the biggest jumps in 2008 from a year earlier based on data from 3,520 physicians:

Neurology: $200,000 to $230,000 –- up 15%

Non-invasive cardiology: $350,000 to $400,000 – up 14.29%

Anesthesiology: $275,000 to $312,500 – up 13.64%

Emergency medicine: $192,000 to $215,040 – up 12%

Internal medicine: $150,000 to $165,000 – up 10%

"And as if we needed any more reminders about why there’s a shortage of pediatricians and family practitioners, the report also contains data on the extremes: The lowest starting salary in 2008 was for pediatricians — $132,500. The other lowest-paid specialties, in ascending order: family practice, geriatrics, urgent care, internal medicine and infectious disease.

The highest specialty salary was for those starting out in neurological surgery — $605,000. Others at the top of the heap, in descending order: radiology (nuclear medicine), thoracic surgery, cardiology and orthopedic surgery."

I've blogged about this before, but coming out of medical school in massive debt, knowing that you are going to make low wages for your three to seven years of training, and still choosing one of the lower income specialties requires some significant altruism. God bless everyone who does this.

But, this should not be such a stark decision. We really do need to do something about reducing or eliminating the cost of medical school to encourage (or at least make it not an economically crazy thing to do) students to enter primary care and other lower paid specialties.

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