6 HIGHEST Paid Doctor Specialties

We all know that some specialties make more money than others, but are they actually making more money per hour? Or are they just working more hours? Let’s dive into the data and find out.

When discussing which specialties make the most money, the conversation usually starts and ends with annual salaries. Although this is a good place to start, it overlooks one crucial component: the time that it takes to make that salary.

We took the average salary for each specialty in 2021 and divided it by the average number of hours worked per week, multiplied by the number of weeks worked in a year, to give us the average hourly wage.

We’ll also discuss factors like competitiveness, on-call responsibilities, and length of training to give you a better understanding of the price you pay to earn that higher hourly wage.

TIME STAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
00:45 Plastic Surgery
02:14 Orthopedic Surgery
03:27 Dermatology
04:18 Cardiology
05:28 Otorhinolaryngology (ENT)
06:35 Emergency Medicine

LINKS FROM VIDEO:

#medicalschool #premed #money
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Disclaimer: Content of this video is my opinion and does not constitute medical advice. The content and associated links provide general information for general educational purposes only. Use of this information is strictly at your own risk. Kevin Jubbal, M.D. and Med School Insiders LLC will not assume any liability for direct or indirect losses or damages that may result from the use of information contained in this video including but not limited to economic loss, injury, illness or death. May include affiliate links to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases made through them (at no extra cost to you).

[tbluemel]

I’m an attending Radiation Oncologist and can say that it can be on this list. Average salary is a little over $400, 000 and average work week is around 45 hours (often closer to 40). It’s an oft neglected specialty but the lifestyle is second to none, call is quite laid back with very rare emergent treatments, and just rewarding patient interactions in general.

[jnoub]

Neurosurgeons are usually the ones who have the highest salary, but for all the work and how much they sacrifice, they should also be at the top of hourly rate. Great video

[ChrisQuelch]

Very helpful for future Doctors. Its important that people take number of hours worked into consideration when choosing their future career. Lifestyle is important too!

[kristinabraly]

Heads up anesthesiologists make between $150-$350 per hour depending on locale. Independent of number of hours worked per week. I, for example, work just 30 hours per week. Pretty sweet gig 😍👍🏻 I would be happy to be your anesthesiologist to refer to when researching future videos to make. Reach out anytime!

[tofarati]

I love that you always compare surgical specialties to all specialties *as well as* surgical specialties too.

[FacundoMD]

ER DOCTOR HERE Amazing video, thank you for this, some young future Med people out there need to hear this. I love EM and it goes with what I like. My best friend left Dermatology for Anesthesia ! Again make sure you really do what you like. All doctors make money. I can assure you that happiness is not exponential the more money does NOT necessarily mean more happiness. Stay Safe all !!!! 🚑👍🙌

[noman]

I chose psychiatry and spent my career primarily in public sector (federal, state) inpatient settings. I often had no call responsibility, salary (excluding benefits) of $185/hour, a set 40 hour work week, good work life balance -- and easily able to do it into my 70's if I so chose (retired @ 67). Many of my higher paid surgical specialists and especially ER docs were burned out or saw skills slowly erode (aging knows no bounds!) by their 50s. I've never seen any starving docs in the US -- pursue what you enjoy, you'll make more than enough to live well.

[tlucero]

It should be obvious, but a point I’d like to make for med students is that these numbers are quite variable, and it’s possible to engineer the job/lifestyle you want if you’re intentional about it. I’m a cardiologist, and I work about 40-41 hours per wk max. We have 5 partners in our group, and we worked out our schedule such that each of us gets 1 day per wk off. In other words, I only work 4 days per wk. These jobs are out there if you know what you want and work hard to make it happen.

[thesorbital]

Great video! Also remember these salaries are pre-tax, physician salaries are highly variable depending on details of practice setting and geography, opportunity costs of additional years of training are larger than trainees may realize, and one can always make more money with smart financial choices and investing. At the end of the day, you're right, salary is important but it shouldn't be the main factor in choosing a specialty!

[NursesToRiches]

Dang, this is exactly the type of content I love to see!

[bluedolphin]

Thank you. Keep these videos with great insights coming.

[jms]

Love your videos. Keep up the good work. Do you think you could do a community college to medical school route video??

[doctorsinnpodcast]

Thank you for including the time stamps!

[arshshah]

Neurosurgery being one of the highest earning specialties but not even making it into top 6 just tells how much the work hours would be 😭😭

[orwaabdulrahman]

Thanks a lot
This video was helpful for many future doctors

[mafiaprincess_]

This was extremely helpful, could you do a video on Pathology please

[rawcontent]

I love watching these videos, they can be, to me, very educational with lots of interesting things in them. When watching this one though I was actually kind of hoping to see something on neurosurgery as well, which is the field of interest for me. Not saying I didn't enjoy the video, I liked watching it, but maybe you could also do one for Neurosurgery later on?

[medschoolshiksha]

Very helpful for future doctors.
Nice video.

[TheRealSkinImInMD]

Several things: this is a great vid because no one breaks down specialities like this for premed and Med students. A lot of these things are important to consider when deciding on a specialty although doing what you enjoy is the most important. I didn’t realize Dermatology was the most competitive (I thought it was one of). Either way following specific steps will allow a student to match into whatever field they want and they shouldn’t be discouraged by competitiveness!

[mcbaggins]

This doesn’t take into account vacation jobs. Almost every radiology private practice job where 58 hours is standard is giving anywhere from 8-16 weeks vacation yet your calculation factored in a standard 2 week vacation across the board. Using the Medscape salary data given here (which is about 100k low compared to MGMA for a pp radiologist working almost 60 hours), that would equal to 178 dollars an hour rather than 142 if given a 12 week vacation.