For medical students examining specialty options, what goes on daily in the clinic is often a top consideration. What about the salary a practicing physician takes home?
A 2025 study found that higher-paying specialties remain more competitive and in-demand among residency applicants, suggesting that compensation still shapes residency choice at a broad level.
In an era of rising educational debt, how should earning potential be considered in picking a specialty? What factors should medical students prioritize ahead of it? Expert insights and data offer clarity on those questions.
Match competition and compensation
Published in the journal Family Practice, the study on physician salary and competitiveness of that specialty in the Match used 2024 salary data from a Doximity survey of 33,000 U.S. physicians and 2024 Match data compiled by the National Resident Match Program.
The findings indicated that specialties with the highest starting salary—a group that included neurosurgery, plastic surgery, orthopedics and plastic surgery—were ranked among the most competitive fields for residency applicants.
The study found specialty pay is strongly linked to Match competitiveness for U.S. MD seniors. On the other side of the equation, this relationship between salary and specialty competitiveness is inversely linked for international medical graduates and osteopathic senior medical students pursuing residency positions through the Match, meaning applicants from those backgrounds are more likely to pursue specialties on the lower end of the pay spectrum.
It is also worth noting that several of the most competitive fields have historically had low match rates for non-MD applicants. That possibility may limit the applicant pool among those applicant types on the front end of the process.
The paper’s authors said that this trend has broader implications for the American physician workforce.
“An important driver of students away from primary care is likely the large wage gap between primary care and subspecialty physicians in the United States,” the paper’s authors wrote.
The AMA offers tools to aid you with your medical specialty choice. FREIDA’s Specialty Guide—and corresponding series of videos offering expert insight on specialty choice—provides a clear, approachable overview of medical specialties and subspecialties and can help you choose a career path. It’s designed to simplify medical students’ specialty selection process, highlight major specialties, detail training information and provide access to related association information.
The prestige trap
Maya Hammoud, MD, is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology who has done extensive work related to residency selection through a grant from the AMA Reimagining Residency initiative. In working with medical students on picking a career path, she has seen that few are swayed outright by salary, though she concedes it can be used as a data point in picking a career path.
More frequently than earning potential, Dr. Hammoud has seen medical students can be swayed by expectations.
In this AMA news article, medical students will get valuable information regarding:
How chasing prestige can push med students to competitive specialties.
Why top medical students with aims on primary care should tune out the noise.
What survey data suggests about income, debt and competitiveness as influences on specialty choice.
How to factor in work-life balance and what the day-to-day in a field looks like after GME.
Why medical students should prioritize purpose and passion over compensation.
