The study, published Sept. 30 in JAMA, looked at 490,188 students in the physician pipeline from 2008 to 2022. Researchers used data from Doximity to define high- and low-paying specialties. High-paying specialties were the surgical fields of neurosurgery, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, otorhinolaryngology, integrated plastic surgery, general surgery, integrated thoracic surgery, urology and integrated vascular surgery; and the nonsurgical fields of anesthesiology, dermatology, nuclear medicine, radiation oncology and diagnostic radiology. The lowest-paying fields were child neurology, emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, internal medicine/pediatrics, medical genetics and genomics, neurology, nuclear medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pathology, pediatrics, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and psychiatry.
Here are three findings:
- The percentage of women entering lower-paying specialties remained steady from 2008 to 2022 at 53% versus 53.3%.
- The proportion of women entering all high-paying fields grew from 32.7% to 40.8%.
- For nonsurgical specialties, the percentage of women fell from 36.8% in 2009 to 34.3% in 2022. In surgical specialties, the rate rose from 28.1% in 2009 to 37.6% in 2022.
