Umm what?! They definitely must be including residents. The lowest physician wage I've ever seen *offered* is $140,000, and that was for half time. There's a lot of overhead in primary care though, so if you're a pediatrician and own your own clinic and don't know how to manage your money (which they don't teach in medical school), you may make just a fraction of your gross billings.
@DoctorJezebel: I'm guessing they are including residents (which is still work, you know, and it's for 3-7 years depending of the specialty, so it's not that insignificant...those people are already doctors). Maybe they're also taking into consideration malpractice and other deductions. But yes,there are physicians (primary care, mostly) who make less than 100K per year. After taxes, malpractice insurance, and the ever-lowering insurance reimbursements, many of them don't make as much as people think.
Also, it's possible that a greater fraction of female physicians work part-time or lower-paying (but with better hours) jobs in order to be able to be home a bit more with their kids. The hours at hospitals are brutal.
@DoctorJezebel: Even including residents, the numbers are way off by anything I can figure. According to the AMA and the AAFP, there are something like just over 900,000 physicians in the U.S.
@chritter is a nocturnal feminist mancatfish: Agreed. It simply doesn't make sense. A head-hunter recently offered me $650K to move to North Dakota. While I won't ever make that money in major cities unless I sell my soul 5 times over, it's still proof-of-concept. The salaries are out there, but the entry cost (these days) is just way too high, and so many doctors are sadly up to their ears in educational debt.
...And this is part of why I quit med school. Why would I want to go through 8 more years of training when I can choose another career with better hours (no call, no intern year, no residency, no debt) and make about the same thing?
And notice I said, "part of it." I had many other more powerful reasons.
Not only are the including residents, DWB and other Pro-Bono work, they are also including people who work part-time for whatever reason. Combined with the fact that women end up in the lower paid specialties, odds are that's dragging the salary numbers down, but even that sounds odd to me.
@Wibbles: I guess that could partly explain it, but as you say, even that sounds very fishy. DWB is a fine organization, but there aren't enough of them from the U.S. to skew the numbers that much. And every other survey I've found (and I could post another half-dozen) is much like the first three I posted. Even resident salaries are a very small percentage of physicians (I'm married to a pediatric resident). It's just very puzzling to me.
"Women are flocking to the labor force in record numbers"
Really Forbes? Is this a new phenomenon? Wow WOMEN in the workforce? As opposed to before where women were staying home in record numbers?
Sorry, I just don't get that statement.
Can someone explain to me how this wage gap is determined? If I'm a nurse to they take ALL nurses and find the median wage between ALL of them or do they take nurses with the same number of years on the job and find a median between them and men with the same amount of time on the job?
If all women are being lumped in with women who choose to take time off [years perhaps] to have children wouldn't that skew the findings a bit?
@veronykah: It definitely does, and it's a big point wage-gap deniers use in attempts to argue that the wage gap doesn't actually exist. (Even accounting for women taking time off, taking lower-paying occupations, part time work, etc, there's definitely still a gap.)
Whatever. A lot of my students here in Spain are doctors and kind of regret it now, that there are so many other professions in the health fields (very few doctors in Europe make big bucks, but they still work long hours). There are a lot of professions in health care that will pay a good salary, don't involve 10+ years of training and astronomical debt. Nothing against doctors. I just think that kids, especially girls, should get good career advice about the varieties of jobs available in health care.
Interesting. I always hate reading articles like this, though, because I intend to be a doctor (not sure what specialty) and doctors have the worst pay gaps. This article says women only earn 59% of what men earn. Sheesh.
"Women often go into family practice or other lower-paying specialties, she says, rather than work the 80-hour-plus weeks of surgeons."
That would kind of make sense, but every time I see the median salary for doctors it's not just for "doctors," but specifically for surgeons, internists, etc. I'd really like to know what the pay gap is for individual specialties.
@Plate2.18: Even in a high-paying specialty, some of your salary is going to come from things like taking call. Male doctors may be more likely to spend more time away from their families at the hospital, whereas female doctors with families would say "forget it, I make enough money and would rather see my kid's soccer game."
I am totally generalizing here, because my doctor mom took the former approach, but that's a story for another time...
@Antrack: which is why in Europe you'll notice that ab out 75% of pharmacists are women. However, of the younger generation, almost 60 % of medical school classes are women.
It's definitely skewed somehow. Residents make like 30-40k a year, and residencies are usually several years long. But I doubt that many physicians (full time, at least) make only 60k a year. With $200,000 in school debt, that's pretty low.
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Also, it's possible that a greater fraction of female physicians work part-time or lower-paying (but with better hours) jobs in order to be able to be home a bit more with their kids. The hours at hospitals are brutal.
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[answers.google.com]
90,000 of which are residents, interns or fellows:
[findarticles.com]
So even factoring in the 10% of artificially low resident salaries, still the numbers make very little sense.
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And notice I said, "part of it." I had many other more powerful reasons.
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[www.payscale.com]
[www.allied-physicians.com]
[mdsalaries.blogspot.com]
06/27/09
Not only are the including residents, DWB and other Pro-Bono work, they are also including people who work part-time for whatever reason. Combined with the fact that women end up in the lower paid specialties, odds are that's dragging the salary numbers down, but even that sounds odd to me.
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06/27/09
Really Forbes? Is this a new phenomenon? Wow WOMEN in the workforce? As opposed to before where women were staying home in record numbers?
Sorry, I just don't get that statement.
Can someone explain to me how this wage gap is determined? If I'm a nurse to they take ALL nurses and find the median wage between ALL of them or do they take nurses with the same number of years on the job and find a median between them and men with the same amount of time on the job?
If all women are being lumped in with women who choose to take time off [years perhaps] to have children wouldn't that skew the findings a bit?
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"Women often go into family practice or other lower-paying specialties, she says, rather than work the 80-hour-plus weeks of surgeons."
That would kind of make sense, but every time I see the median salary for doctors it's not just for "doctors," but specifically for surgeons, internists, etc. I'd really like to know what the pay gap is for individual specialties.
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I am totally generalizing here, because my doctor mom took the former approach, but that's a story for another time...
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[mdsalaries.blogspot.com]
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Uh, color me confused. I know nurses who make more than that...
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It's definitely skewed somehow. Residents make like 30-40k a year, and residencies are usually several years long. But I doubt that many physicians (full time, at least) make only 60k a year. With $200,000 in school debt, that's pretty low.
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