How much do 'doctors' earn yearly?

Answer 1

Physician's incomes vary dramatically based on several factors: specialty, supply/demand, and location. 1. specialty - pediatricians earn an average of about $130,000 per year; plastic surgeons average about $300,000 per year. In general, doctors who have higher risk or who have more "technical skills" are likely to earn more - ie, urologists, invasive cardiologists, dermatologists, and orthopedic surgeons are on the higher end of the pay scale, while family practitioners, pediatricisns, and OB-GYNs are on the lower end of that pay scale. 2. location - the cost of living may mean that a family physician in Oklahoma City may make less than someone doing the same job in Manhattan (where everything from rent to income to the price of a McDonald's cheeseburger is inflated), although the doctor in Manhattan is probably spending a lot more of that income on his rent. 3. supply and demand - Imagine being a 30-year-old physician, just out of a residency program in Atlanta. Your wife has a job that she loves, you have a great group of friends, you're wanting to have a child in the next year, you have excellent schools where you live. You could take a job there, earning $130,000 next year. Or, you could put your house on the market, hope it sells, move to a small town in rural Georgia where you have to drive an hour to get to Walmart, and the public schools are a mess. You, and the dozens of other family practice doctors getting out of resiency in Atlanta, do not seriously consider the offer from the rural town for obvious reasons. Over time, demand for a doctor in the rural town grows. People are willing to pay a little more to have a doctor in their community. A Doctor Who eventually moves into the area can expect to make 10-20% more than the Atlanta doctors, due to the large demand and little competiton in the area. The downside, obviously, would be the "quality of life" that many doctors expect. Conversely, specialists have the opposite problem with supply and demand in many ways: if you enjoy open spaces and small towns (like, under 2,000 people), you are not going to be able to see many patients or really earn a living as a pediatric psychiatrist or other sub-specialist. The demand for your services is not anywhere near what it would be in a big city. A nephrologist in a town of 50,000 people may not have as many patients to see in as a nephrologist in a town of a million people, thus making less money. Doctors who go through super-special training - such as learning a difficult brain surgery technique, or how to use specialized robotic surgery equipment - can expect to earn more money. 4. hours - doctors often have the benefit of being their own boss, or at least having some say in the workload they want. If you work harder, you will make more money. Some doctors want to earn $800,000 per year, and they work 80+ hours per week, seeing critically-ill or intensive-care patients, staying up all night on-call, etc., in order to do that. Other doctors work part-time, 20-30 hours per week - enough to earn $40,000 a year, but also have time to spend with their kids. So, there is a wide variation in what doctors make. If you want some ballpark numbers, though, $130,000 would be a typical salary for a doctor, but some make as little as $40,000 and a few brain surgeons, pediatric cardiovascular surgeons, or other "super-specialists" can make $800,000 or more.