Story at-a-glance
- Physician pay varies wildly by city – Doctors in smaller cities and rural areas earn more than peers in major metros like NYC or SF.
- Cost of living makes a huge impact – Even high salaries in big cities often don’t go far after housing, taxes, and expenses.
- Highest-paid cities include Charlotte, St. Louis, and Oklahoma City, while DC, Boston, and San Antonio rank lowest.
- The gender pay gap persists – Even when working full-time, female doctors earn 26% less than male counterparts on average.
- Pay gaps exist in every specialty and city – Women consistently earned less in 48 out of 48 specialties nationwide.
“I’d be a bum on the street with a tin cup if markets were efficient.” – Warren Buffett
Physicians aren’t commodities – and neither are the markets they work in. That’s why there are big differences in compensation, even within the same city and within the same specialty. A recent survey from Doximity uncovered significant differences in pay that extend across regions, specialties and gender.
The Doximity study looked at pay and compensation trends for physicians across 48 specialties in all major metropolitan markets across the country. The study’s authors considered only those physicians working at least 40 hours per week, thereby ironing out gender pay differences that may arise from women physicians going to part-time work while raising a family.
It turns out the big money isn’t in the big cities. Rural areas and cities with lower costs of living tend to pay doctors more than higher cost metro markets like Chicago, San Francisco and New York City.
Moreover, throw in cost of living factors, and doctors in many of these metro markets are getting seriously squeezed, compared to their colleagues in smaller towns and cities.
The five highest paid markets for physicians
- Charlotte, North Carolina ($430,890)
- St. Louis, Missouri ($426,370)
- Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ($425,096)
- San Jose, California ($418,600)
- Minneapolis, Minnesota ($411,677)
The five lowest paid areas for physicians
- Washington, D.C. ($342,139)
- Baltimore, Maryland ($346,260)
- Boston, Massachusetts ($347,553)
- San Antonio, Texas ($347,692)
- Raleigh, North Carolina ($351,732)
We note that Washington D.C., at the lowest end of the income scale, is also one of the most expensive cities in the country when it comes to cost of living concerns – and none of the highest-paying markets are anywhere near it.
Note: Salaries in the DC-Baltimore corridor are possibly skewed downward because of the high concentration of federal employees in the area, including VA centers and military installations. But the trend is clear – doctors that practice well away from tier one gateway cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Chicago and New York City are likely to be paying off student loans much faster and putting significantly more money away for retirement.
The Gender Gap
Even after slicing off part time doctors from the sample, the Doximity study found significant pay gaps between men and women. This was true for all major metropolitan markets and across all specialties. Women doctors earn 26% less than men overall. And it’s not just a matter of women tending to be more likely to choose lower-paid specialties. Women underearned men by at least 10% (with a few exceptions) in all 48 medical specialties they looked at across the country.
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