How much do pulmonologists make?

Answer 1

Due to the high malpractice premiums and high overhead of private practice most ER or ICU RN's make more than doctors. good luck Joymaker RN

I think the question is about what a Pulmonary and Critical Care MD makes, not an RN. BTW, you GREATLY overstate the cost of malpractice for nurses, which the hospital covers anyway.

I am a Pulmonologist. I, like 95% of all Pulmonary Physicians, am dual boarded in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. About 90% of my current practice is hospital based, about 60% being critical care based.

Pulmonary makes up the vast majority of Critical Care Specialist practicing outside of academics in America, so any discussion on how much a Pulmonologist makes needs to also equally discuss the Critical Care aspect of the speciality.

In addition, due to the overall shortage of good qualified Pulmonary and Critical Care Doctors willing to work the hectic schedule that the ICU demands, and b/c you can't have any surgical or medical specialty w/o good Critical Care backup, the salary has ballooned substantially over the last 10 years as the author indicates.

The updated current average Pulmonary/CC physicians salary is around 320,000 a year, with 429,000 being the 75% mark, at least in the SE US. Last year I earned over 600,000, but I also took 10 days off out of 365 and took call about 340 of those days, so I basically worked all the time.

Not sure how long this trend will continue, but to be fair, as long as their are other specialties that make money, Critical Care and the shortage will continue to drive Pulmonary salaries higher. This is my personal experience in the field.