The numbers are in. Doximity’s always-anticipated Physician Compensation Report showed that overall compensation grew 5.9% last year – a welcome rebound after the 2.4% dip in 2022.
Survey responses from 33k doctors brought more good news than that, with medicine’s gender wage gap narrowing to 23%, down from 26% in 2022.
- Decent improvement, but women physicians are still taking home an average of $102k less than men after controlling for specialty, location, and experience.
Neurosurgeons continued to top the charts at $764k, nearly 4X the annual compensation of their pediatric endocrinologist peers at the bottom of the totem pole ($217k).
Other interesting highlights from the report included the fact that 81% of physicians reported feeling overworked, causing many to consider an employment change (59%) or early retirement (30%).
- 88% of physicians also said that their practice has been impacted by the physician shortage, three-quarters of which described the impact as “moderate” or “severe.”
- Funnily enough, the physician shortage wasn’t even the leading contributor to burnout, which 70% of respondents pinned squarely on administrative burden.
Despite recording a slight increase, total physician compensation has dropped 26% since 2001 when accounting for inflation. As it currently stands, only 40% of physicians are happy with their compensation, and more of these disgruntled doctors are unfortunately eyeing the exit.
The Takeaway
Physicians are still overworked and the wage gap is barely moving in the right direction, but at least they can rest easy knowing inflation is barely eating into their total compensation…
