Even before the completion of medical school, future physicians have a number hovering over their heads that may shape their future—the balance owed on their medical student loans.
According to 2024 data from the Association of American Medical Colleges, the typical medical student graduates with about $205,000 in medical education debt. Those medical student-loan debt figures may inspire some trainees to factor earning potential into their career plans.
For medical students looking to understand the role compensation may play in a career path, here are a few things to keep in mind.
It takes years to realize your earning potential. As a physician, you will not maximize your earnings until the completion of your graduate medical education. The average first-year resident physician makes about $60,000.
Resident salaries are determined by an institution and correlate with training year rather than specialty. So, in a given training institution, all residents who are in their third year of training typically get the same salary, and all in their sixth year are paid the same as well.
Learn more with the AMA about key budgeting techniques for resident physicians.
Take care regarding which sources to believe. “Be very careful if you're just leaning on the ChatGPTs of the world and data that you're finding on Reddit threads,” said Kyle Claussen, CEO and lead attorney for physician contract-negotiation firm Resolve. “You're really doing yourself a disservice by not going out and gathering the right information. Physicians wouldn't make a diagnosis on old information. They shouldn't do that with their career either when the compensation values are this high.”
The AMA has teamed up with Resolve to provide custom contract review to AMA members at a discount. Resolve offers personalized legal experience to help physicians secure the best employment contract terms, no matter where they are in their careers. Ready to access your AMA-member Resolve discount? Learn more now.
Further, the AMA Physician Practice Benchmark Survey focuses on the practice arrangements and payment methodologies of physicians who take care of patients for at least 20 hours per week and don't work for the federal government. The surveys have been conducted on an every-other-year basis since 2012. AMA Policy Research Perspective reports, based on the surveys, provide detailed analysis of the data. For example, recent reports have described trends in physician practice participation in value-based care and the share of doctors in private practice.
Specialty and geography matter. Physicians, especially residents making the transition to practice, also need more than just a ballpark salary figure to know their true worth. They need geographic data, and they need information that is specialty-specific.
“You can't just Google what a physician earns. That's not an accurate search,” Resolve’s Claussen told the AMA. “You want to make sure the results you're getting are specific enough for your specialty because orthopaedic surgeons and family medicine physicians have very different compensation metrics.”
Consult this in-depth Specialty Guide for highlights on specialties, Match data and career statistics. The guide is part of FREIDA™, the AMA Residency and Fellowship Database®, which allows users to search from over 13,000-plus residency programs accredited by the Accreditation council for Graduate Medical Education. AMA members can save, compare and rank—all in one place.
Higher-paying specialties tend to require more training. Medical students who do pursue a career in a higher-paying specialty or subspecialty may have a smaller window for optimal earning. Those specialties tend to require the most training between residency and a subspecialty-focused fellowship.
The primary care specialties earn less by comparison but require less time in training. With some primary care programs offering pathways for physicians to go through medical school and residency in as little as six years, students in these programs can reduce medical student-loan debt and earn more money quicker by spending less time in residency.
Learn more with the AMA about why training length shouldn’t be a key factor in specialty choice.
It’s not just about the yearly salary. For medical students looking ahead to their careers in practice, it is critical that they look beyond the splashiest number in a contract—the yearly salary.
“When you think about value of a physician and value of anybody's career, a guaranteed salary is important, but in medicine, so are productivity metrics, because most physicians are still on a fee-for-service model,” Resolve’s Claussen told the AMA. “The dollar-per-work-RVU or collection percentage being offered will likely matter more to the physician over the course of their career.”
Data from AMN Healthcare’s Physician Solutions division shows dwindling numbers of their clients’ contracts using quality as a factor for structuring the bonuses paid to physicians. A look at the data shows that, of the AMN Healthcare searches that offered a bonus in addition to salary, quality was one of the bonus metrics just 16% of the time in 2024–2025. That was down from 26% in 2023–2024, and four times lower than the 64% rate during the 2019–2020 period.
Meanwhile, one way to judge health care employers’ commitment to physician well-being is by whether they have been recognized as part of the AMA Joy in Medicine® Health System Recognition Program, which empowers health systems to reduce burnout so that physicians and their patients can thrive.
You will probably get a signing bonus. AMN Healthcare’s data also shows that would-be employers are offering more in the way of physician signing bonuses, medical student-loan repayment—which some might think of broadly as “physician loan forgiveness”—as well as relocation packages, CME allowances and other aspects that round out the overall compensation picture.
The average signing bonuses offered for the top five most-requested specialties by AMN’s physician employer clients were:
- Anesthesiology—$59,583 average, ranging from $10,000–$150,000.
- Internal medicine—$56,903 average, ranging from $5,000–$225,000.
- Gastroenterology—$47,174 average, ranging from $10,000–$125,000.
- Family medicine—$47,417 average, ranging from $10,000–$200,000.
- Radiology—$39,706 average, ranging from $5,000–$250,000.
Explore further with the AMA on employer-sponsored medical student-loan repayment, and find out more about practice options for physicians (PDF, AMA members only).
Learn more with the AMA STEPS Forward® toolkit, “What to Look for in Your First or Next Practice.
