There are about 900,000 doctors in America, and the U.S. has among the highest ratios of doctors to the population of any country in the world. Doctors make an average of $270,000 a year and work an average of 55 hours. These numbers are at least two years old. Among the weakness of these data are that they do not cover the number of physicians who have left the field due to COVID-19, either because of fear of infection, or a drop in revenue. Nevertheless, the range of what doctors make varies widely by specialty.
According to a new Medscape study, the lowest-paid doctors in America are pediatricians. They make an average of $221,000 a year, followed by doctors who practice family medicine at $236,000. These compare to the highest specialty, plastic surgeons, at $526,000.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that patients are treated by their pediatricians until they are 21. After they graduate from medical school, pediatricians are generally in residency programs for three years. They cannot be board-certified until they pass an exam given by the American Board of Pediatrics. According to US News, they may work in several categories of subspecialties. These include “neonatology, oncology and hematology to developmental-behavioral pediatrics and psychiatry.” US News puts pediatrician compensation even lower than Medscape with a figure of $175,310.
One of the reasons pediatricians exist is that children are not “small adults” as a paper published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine explains. Their anatomies and the doses of medication they receive can be very different. In the U.S., they are represented by The American Academy of Pediatrics is an American.
Click here to read These Are the 25 Lowest Paying Jobs In America
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