Medscape Physician Salary & Satisfaction Survey Results

Medscape has released the results of their 2013 physician salary and satisfaction survey.  They’ve been doing this for the past 3 years and the results are interesting and informative.  The data comprises information from 21,878 physicians across 25 medical specialties regarding the 2012 fiscal year.  I cherry picked some key points I thought you might find interesting for the Anesthesiologist community:

• Anesthesiology was the 6^th highest compensated specialty in 2012 at $337,000. The 3 top earning specialties were: orthopedic surgery ($405,000), cardiology ($357,000), and radiology ($349,000).
• Anesthesiologist experienced an average of 5% increase in income in 2012.
• Board certification contributed towards an increase in compensation of $101,000.
• Only 47% of Anesthesiologist said that they were overall satisfied.
• 55% said that they were fairly compensated.
• Only 39% said that they would choose Medicine as a career again.
• Only 46% said that they would choose Anesthesiology as a specialty again.
• The two most rewarding parts of the jobs were: patient interaction and diagnosing patient problems.

I think the most telling survey finding is the drop in satisfaction levels of all physicians and Anesthesiologists in particular. It’s hard to determine the source of the dissatisfaction, however; given the shear amount of chance interjected into the healthcare system by the Affordable Care Act, it is no wonder that healthcare providers are unhappy because of the unknowns that exist.

To view all of the Medscape survey findings in a slideshow format, click the link below:

http://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/compensation/2013/public