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At a time when physician shortages continue to loom, medical students and other healthcare professionals likely want to know the average annual salaries for the most recruited medical specialties.
Salary is a definite consideration when choosing a specialty, especially for recent medical school graduates who may owe $200,000 or more in student loan debt, said Tara Osseck, regional vice president of Jackson Physician Search. She oversees the company’s Midwest division and is based in St. Louis .
“It tends to land among the top three biggest factors to consider,” Osseck said about salary. “But it’s not the only factor. And for many providers, it’s not even the biggest one. I think physicians tend to choose their specialty based on what they’re passionate about.”
A recent 2024 report from AMN Healthcare — a company which specializes in providing healthcare staffing solutions — laid out the most requested searches by specialty.
“These specialties that fall on this list really show where the healthcare system is feeling the most pressure,” Osseck said. “Sometimes it’s about access. Sometimes it’s about depth of care.”
Why did these fields make this list? What is the average annual salary for each of these top recruited fields? Where are these healthcare fields headed in the future? Medscape Medical News turned to the experts to get their takes.
Top 10 Most Requested Searches by Specialty
For its annual report, AMN Healthcare’s Physician Solutions division conducted search engagement in 49 states (excluding Hawaii) and Washington, DC, during the 2024 review period. The review is based on a sample of 2138 permanent physician and advanced practice provider search engagements.
- Nurse Practitioner (NP) - Average annual salary in 2023-2024: $164,000
NP topped the list for the fourth consecutive year. Starting salaries for NPs were up by 8.6% year over year, “underscoring the strong demand for advanced practice nurses,” according to the report.
“NPs are filling needs created by the physician shortage and are being used to staff a growing number of urgent care centers, retail clinics, and telemedicine platforms,” the report stated. “In addition, more specialty medical practices are employing them.”
In terms of primary care providers, “the demand is sky high,” Osseck said, “because these providers are the first stop for most patients. And we’re in a time where…more people are seeking care, fewer physicians are entering primary care fields. So it really is a growing gap at that most foundational level.”
Delivery access and physician shortages have been a challenge for years, Mike Coppola, chief operating officer of AMGA Consulting, told Medscape Medical News.
“And so one of the ways organizations are trying to address that is through the use of advanced practice providers like nurse practitioners and physician assistants,” he said. “So we’ve seen increased utilization.”
- Family Medicine - Average annual salary in 2023-2024: $271,000
The average annual starting salary for a family medicine physician grew by 6.27% year over year, according to the AMN report, which also found that these physicians continue to be in demand, although overall demand is down compared to prior years.
Fewer doctors going into primary care fields is nothing new, Coppola said. “Family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics — those primary care specialties have long had this challenge, right? They’re not compensated as well as specialists.”
Those who go into primary care fields generally don’t do it for the money but rather for their “altruistic value or ‘I want to care for others and improve their lives,’” he said.
In the past 4-5 years, there have been some changes in how primary care physicians are compensated via relative value units as set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Coppola said.
“That has helped a little, but not significantly,” he explained.
The average annual compensation change between 2017 and 2024 for family medicine doctors was 3.7%, according to an analysis by Coppola’s AMGA Consulting.
- Ob/Gyn - Average annual salary in 2023-2024: $389,000
“Demand for ob/gyns remains strong, while supply may be inhibited by the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision,” the report stated, “after which fewer medical school graduates opted for ob/gyn residency programs.” The decision did away with the constitutional right to an abortion.
Additionally, demand for ob/gyn doctors is “really market specific because it’s typically population driven,” Coppola said. “If you’re in a region that doesn’t have population growth or women of childbearing age, then you’re going to see less recruitment of obstetrics because there’s not as much market need.”
Separately, about a decade ago, malpractice rates for obstetrics skyrocketed in some states, Coppola said. “So physicians either left that state, or they did the other side of ob/gyn and did gynecology only. That has calmed a little bit…” he said.
Deliveries and a sometimes more burdensome call schedule than other fields can also lead to burnout and turnover in this field, Osseck added.
- Internal Medicine - Average salary in 2023-2024: $271,000
Internal medicine is a primary care specialty, like family medicine, and the same trends apply, Coppola said. The decline in rate of demand for these doctors is almost the same as for family medicine, he noted.
Internal medicine, similar to family medicine, saw a 3.7% average annual compensation change from 2017 to 2025, according to Coppola, who cited research conducted by his company, AMGA Consulting.
- Gastroenterology - Average salary in 2023-2024: $531,000
The AMN report found that demand for gastroenterologists has been up and down over the past 6 years.
Some of this variability could have been driven by the COVID pandemic, said Coppola.
Another factor driving this trend could be private equity groups, which “like general gastroenterology practices because they generate a lot of revenue,” he said.
“If there was an increase in private equity transactions for GI practices from (20)21 to (20)23, that could have driven the need to recruit more physicians to continue to grow those practices,” Coppola said.
“A lot of those types of transactions, because of broader economic things, have kind of slowed down a little bit. [You’ve seen] over the last couple of years less transactions as inflation and interest rates have increased.”
- Radiology - Average salary in 2023-2024: $495,000
“As the US population continues to age, so will the need for diagnostic imaging...,” Osseck said. “Older adults simply require more CT scans, MRIs, x-rays, everything from heart disease to joint issues to cancer detection. And so that specialty plays, and will continue to play, a vital role in diagnosing and monitoring just about every chronic condition that an aging population will deal with.”
Yet with many radiologists nearing retirement age, “there simply aren’t enough new trainees to fill the gap,” Osseck said.
Radiologists often face a hefty workload, sometimes reviewing thousands of images every week, so burnout is not uncommon, she said.
Many physicians are scaling back their work or opting for teleradiology, “which can make in-person coverage really difficult to maintain for hospitals,” she said.
“We’re seeing more and more organizations offer hybrid roles or figure out creative solutions to allow someone to work completely remotely,” Osseck added.
- Cardiology - Average salary in 2023-2024: $396,000
“Cardiovascular disease still is the leading cause of death in the United States , so just that alone, I think, continues to drive tremendous demand for cardiologists, especially as we’re seeing more patients that are seeking out preventative care or managing chronic conditions,” Osseck said.
“But as people are living longer, they’re just going to continue to require more cardiac monitoring, intervention, long-term management.”
Today, cardiology encompasses advanced imaging, interventional procedures, electrophysiology, and a number of sub-subspecialty components, Osseck said.
“So as treatment options are expanding and becoming more sophisticated, you do need the subspecialist to be able to meet that demand,” she said. At the same time, there is also a need for replacements for cardiologists who are generalists and are retiring. So it’s a twofold need, Osseck said.
- Anesthesiology - Average salary in 2023-2024: $460,000
“Kind of like radiology, I would say there’s a similar path for anesthesia, in that every surgery, every invasive treatment, every major diagnostic procedure need anesthesia support,” Osseck said.
As more medical procedures are shifting to outpatient or ambulatory surgery centers, the number of surgeries has also increased, according to Osseck.
“A big trend that we’ve seen, a lot of organizations really lean into to overcome the challenges of recruiting a physician anesthesiologist is leaning on CRNAs (certified registered nurse anesthetist) to be able to keep up with demand,” she said. “We’re doing more CRNA recruitment now than we probably have in the last 5-7 years.”
Post-pandemic, it’s been a huge trend to be able to properly staff an anesthesia department, she added.
“Anesthesia has seen a particularly difficult few years with reimbursements lagging compensation,” Coppola said in an email.
- Hospitalist - Average salary in 2023-2024: $283,000
Over the past two decades, hospitalist has probably been one of the most in-demand specialties, said Osseck. “I do not see that demand slowing down,” she said.
“Many times, their schedules do rotate to include nights and weekends and holidays. So that schedule is one of the biggest contributors to burnout and turnover in that specialty.”
- Hematology/Oncology - Average salary in 2023-2024: $444,000
Cancer rates are increasing, “so therein lies the fact that there’s a tremendous need for more oncologists to be able to manage care across really all stages of cancer,” Osseck said.
Burnout is highly prevalent within this specialty, she said.
“Oncologists are not only managing really complex medical cases, but they’re also supporting patients and their families through very emotionally charged diagnoses and end-of-life decisions. And so burnout is very, very real in this field.”
To counteract this intensity, employers are increasingly offering flexible work weeks.
“I’m seeing trends of 3.5- or 4-day work weeks becoming more common for this specialty,” Osseck said.
This trend tends to be more prevalent in bigger cities, “so that leaves many rural hospitals or community hospitals that are struggling to recruit,” she said.
