The physician gender pay gap has remained steady at 26% overall for two years in a row, Doximity found.
Doximity, a digital platform for U.S. medical professionals, released its 2026 Physician Compensation Report Aug. 25. The report surveyed physicians in June on how AI is changing physician careers and pay, and included salary data from the platform’s dataset of more than 23,000 responses collected in 2025, according to a company news release.
The persistent gender pay gap may stem from higher growth in surgical specialties that tend to be dominated by men, the report said. It found that from 2014 to 2019 men are estimated to make over $2 million more, on average, than women over a 40-year career.
Here are the specialties with the largest and smallest gender pay gaps in 2026.
Largest
Thoracic Surgery: 19.7%
Gastroenterology: 16.6%
Pediatric Rheumatology: 16.1%
Otolaryngology (ENT): 15.4%
Pediatrics: 15.4%
Smallest
Pediatric cardiology: 8.7%
Radiology: 10%
Medical genetics: 10.2%
Pathology: 11%
Pediatric emergency medicine: 11%
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