Here's how much money doctors across the US make, for doing everything from brain surgery to treating kids and people with cancer

Emma CourtMar 26, 2019, 15:30 IST

GREY'S ANATOMY - 'With a Wonder and a Wild Desire'/'Broken Together' - During the first hour of the two-hour season premiere, the doctors at Grey Sloan Memorial vie for a new position. Meredith is seemingly distracted and struggles to stay focused, and Maggie finds herself the keeper of a big secret while Amelia and Owen try to figure out their relationship. Meanwhile, Jo and Alex's honeymoon doesn't go exactly as planned. In the second hour, new doctors continue to shake up the hospital in typical Grey Sloan manner. Meredith bonds with a patient while Jackson struggles with the meaning behind recent experiences; and after making a life-changing decision, Jo forms an unexpected alliance. The two-hour season premiere of 'Grey's Anatomy' airs THURSDAY, SEPT. 27 (8:00-10:00 p.m. EDT), on The ABC Television Network.Eric McCandless/ABC via Getty Images

Doctors make some of the highest salaries in the US.
A new, in-depth study from the doctor social-networking service Doximity shows that pay can vary a lot depending on whether a physician treats kids, specializes in bladder diseases or performs surgery.
The gender wage gap is also very real in medicine, the new study shows.
Read on to find out how much each area of medicine makes on average, and where the wage gap between male and female doctors is most and least pronounced.

Healthcare is important, and doctor pay reflects that. Physicians make some of the highest salaries in the US.

Now we've got details about just how much they make, thanks to a new, in-depth report from Doximity, the online social networking service for doctors.

Wages range a lot depending on what kind of medicine a doctor practices, with some specialties paying as much as $500,000 or $600,000 each year, on average.

You might not be surprised to find that many of those top-paid doctors are surgeons, with brain surgeons topping the list. Meanwhile, some of the lowest-paid physicians treat kids, families and older individuals.

Doctor salaries usually go up each year, but this year was the first time that they started to level out, the report found. Doximity tied this to big-picture changes in how people get healthcare in the US, with fewer doctors owning their own practices and more hospitals buying eachother up and getting even larger.

Unfortunately, another factor that plays into salary is a doctor's gender. Doximity found that the wage gap between physicians persists but now seems to be on the decline. The study also identifies the medical specialties where the discrepancy is biggest and smallest.

San Francisco, California-based Doximity got started in 2011 and claims more than 70% of US doctors as members. The company says it surveyed about 90,000 licensed US doctors who practice full-time for the study.

Here's what we've learned:

See Here's how much money doctors across the US make, for doing everything from brain surgery to treating kids and people with cancer >>

Family doctors and pediatricians tend to make some of the lowest physician salaries in the US.

Specializing in surgery has a reputation for being a demanding, but lucrative, profession. That held up in the Doximity report, with other high-paying specialties including dermatology, cardiology and plastic surgery.

The gender pay gap is real, and persists in medicine, too. Some of the specialties where it appears to be smallest include hematology (treats blood diseases), rheumatology (musculoskeletal diseases) and thoracic surgery (operations on chest organs like the heart and lungs).

Meanwhile, some of the biggest discrepancies between what male and female physicians are paid can be seen in pediatric pulmonology (treats breathing problems in kids like asthma), otolaryngology (head and neck surgeons) and urology (treats diseases related to the bladder, kidneys and more).

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Here's how much money doctors across the US make, for doing everything from brain surgery to treating kids and people with cancer

Family doctors and pediatricians tend to make some of the lowest physician salaries in the US.

Specializing in surgery has a reputation for being a demanding, but lucrative, profession. That held up in the Doximity report, with other high-paying specialties including dermatology, cardiology and plastic surgery.

The gender pay gap is real, and persists in medicine, too. Some of the specialties where it appears to be smallest include hematology (treats blood diseases), rheumatology (musculoskeletal diseases) and thoracic surgery (operations on chest organs like the heart and lungs).

Meanwhile, some of the biggest discrepancies between what male and female physicians are paid can be seen in pediatric pulmonology (treats breathing problems in kids like asthma), otolaryngology (head and neck surgeons) and urology (treats diseases related to the bladder, kidneys and more).