Residency Salary in USA

Residency and Fellowships in the USA are both a type of "Graduate Medical Education" - while Medical school would be classified as Undergraduate. MD Resident salary in 2010 from any specialty were as follows: 
NOTE: These are means based on a national survey by the AAMC - the actual figures can vary by $3,000 to $4000 on either side of the mean, an at times more. 

Year	Average Salary
1st  (PGY1 / Intern)	$46,000
2nd (PGY2)	$48,000
3rd  (PGY3)	$50,000
4th  (PGY4)	$52,000
5th  (PGY5)	$55,000
6th  (PGY6)	$57,000

Medical school residency programs in Internal Medicine and Family Practice have a duration of three years, Neurology & Pathology is four years, while General Surgery is usually 5 years, Neurosurgery - 6 years.

Chief Residents may or may not receive an additional stipend of $2000/- to $3500/- a year (not a rule), and sometimes may include a promise of getting into their fellowship programs.

NOTE: Some places may even offer more attractive residency salary depending on the cost of living - such as New York. Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center is known to offer the highest residency salaries and here's the latest figures on the website:

Year	Average Salary
1st  (PGY1 / Intern)	$51,514
2nd (PGY2)	$56,137
3rd  (PGY3)	$61,597
4th  (PGY4)	$63,209
5th  (PGY5)	$65,234

But then again, a Resident has some good perks & benefits - like most programs provide free food to residents while on duty, free laundry for their coats and free parking spaces...besides health insurance. As a sample, have a look at the Internal Medicine residency compensation and benefits at the Mayo Clinical college of Medicine, Arizona. Here's another sample look at salaries and benefits at Carle Foundation family Practice Residency.

Lot of banks too open up to residents, providing zero-down payment loans for buying houses !

Do Residency Salary Levels Depend on the Specialty ?

No - Usually Residents of all specialties at a given institution receive the same salary levels, which rather depend on the year (i.e. PY1, 2, 3 or 4) . Salary levels may vary from one institution to another and often vary from state to state, as per living costs.

Is there a Difference in Residency Salaries of MD and DO (Doctor of Osteopathy) Candidates ?

No, all are paid the same - MD (Americans and IMGs) and DO candidates

It is good to know that Residency Salaries and in fact for all Graduate Medical Education (GME) in the USA is paid for by mainly by Medicare and partly through state-level Medicaid funds, both of which are derived from tax-payers money in the US.

Residency Work Hours and Lifestyle  
Most of the specialties are Hectic ! The most rigorous years of a physicians life - the 80-hour per week work limits now imposed on a resident have bought some sanity, but that limit is often transcended under the demands of patient care. Generally speaking, University Programs and University-Affiliated residency programs are more saner to work in as compared to the more busy community programs. For more information about Residency and lifestyle of residents in USA read Top 5 Tips for Surviving Residency in USA.

Get Ready for Residency in Internal Medicine

You are a second year medical student interested in Hospital Medicine? Doubting on what specific electives to consider at your 4th year of med school? Wondering how to get better prepared for future Internal Medicine residency?

Well, a great question! Lets figure it out.

As a 3rd year medical student you will have cool clinical rotations in different disciplines – family medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, bloodless surgery and internal medicine.
Also you will have limited electives options within each core curriculum clinical rotation. Don’t care too much about these electives, because anything will do.

When you are a 4th year medical student you finally have an option to choose electives by yourself. And there occurs a question: what electives to choose if you’re dreaming of becoming a Hospitalist? So here is my advice for all medical students planning on doing residency in Internal Medicine.

WHAT ELECTIVES TO CHOOSE?

1. Radiology. It’s an interesting and exciting rotation. You will learn to read X-rays, get acquainted with radiographic signs of various diseases. Of course, you won’t read your own CTs and MRIs in real life. Nevertheless, it’s important to have a good sense of what you’re looking at on rounds. 

2. Electrophysiology cardiology. Why? EKG is very important. Try to do your best in “reading” EKG/ECG, it’s a “must have” skill for specialist in Internal Medicine. After completing the rotation you will understand the diagnosis and management of arrhythmias, become skilled in managing and following-up patients with implanted pacemakers and defibrillators.


3. Gross anatomy. This is one of the hardest educational experiences in life of every medical student. Nothing can prepare you for tons of information you have to memorize in first week of your medical school. 4th year students have already accustomed to giant amounts of information, that’s why Gross Anatomy rotation is a bit easier.Not the most interesting rotation, perhaps... But our goal in Top Internal Medicine residency. Remember it!

4. Dermatology. It’s the only field in medicine where you have to remember just two medications: a steroid cream and an antibiotic cream. Remember this advice and you’ll get A+. Our aim is Internal Medicine residency, and if you become a Hospitalist one day you’ll understand why any inpatient dermatology consult will always result in the same answer. If it’s dry, make it wet. If it’s wet, make it dry. In either case, they’ll get an order for a steroid cream and an antibiotic.

5. Rheumatology. Another not too fascinating rotation. However, clear understanding of rheumatology with all its lupus and fibromyalgias will help you to get Internal Medicine residency. Isn’t it our aim? Rheumatology is a classic medical sub-specialty in Internal Medicine. By the conclusion of this elective, you will be more comfortable with the overall approach to the rheumatic patient.

6. Choose anything outpatient. Doesn’t matter what. But try to avoid lengthy inpatient rotations where you’re in the hospital until midnight every night.

7. Do a moth or even two of research. Your hаndicаp hаs a few morе strokеs to go before the big spring scramble.

8. Take a month of sick leave. Or get pregnаnt аnd tаke a month off for mаternity leаve. I think both, if they aren’t already, will be аvаilable to you by the time you bеcomе a fourth yеar mеdicаl studеnt. Becаuse you’ve been working too hard for two years and Аmerica thinks it isn’t fаir.

Post Residency Physician Salarу

While most income figures mentioned on Doctor Salary Blog are often mid-career salaries, "exit surveys" from the outgoing batch of residents is a great way to gather information on the job market and starting salary offers for fresh-of-the-mill doctors. The University of Albany School of Public Health has been publishing workforce study reports for various occupations in the state of New York since 1997.
The 2010 report indicates a continued strong job market for physicians in US, with only 4% of the surveyed residents without jobs at the time of the survey.


Here are some of the median starting income offers ( pre-tax, base salaries + Bonuses).

Highest Starting Physician Salary:

Orthopedics : $259,700
Radiology : $257,000)
Anesthesiology: $242,100
Cardiology: $241,900

Lowest Starting Physician Salary:  

Primary Care (Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics) : $142,000
Pediatrics: $110,000

More notable excerpts from the report:

"Generalists received approximately the same number of job offers as specialists"
"Among the specialty groups, the highest median starting incomes were facility based specialties (including anesthesiology, pathology, and radiology; $247,000) and surgical sub-specialties ($238,800). Surgery-general experienced the highest average annual increases in starting income from 2005 to 2010 (11%)."

"Individual specialties seeing the greatest average annual increase were dermatology, pulmonary disease, and pathology"

"Ophthalmology was the only specialty that did not experience an increase in median starting income between 2005 and 2010."

An indirect indicator of demand for a specialty could be the ability to find a job in a location of choice.

"The highest percentages of graduates having difficulty finding a satisfactory practice position were in physical medicine and rehabilitation (59%), geriatrics (56%), hematology/oncology (42%), and pediatric subspecialties (38%). Conversely, otolaryngology (0%), pulmonary disease (0%), gastroenterology (4%), and ophthalmology (11%) had the fewest respondents reporting difficulty"

Hmm...I thought there was a relatively good demand for geriatricians - or maybe that demand is to surge when the baby boomers start retiring, peaking in 2020-2030.

Number of Job Offers Received:

"The mean number of job offers received by graduates in 2010 was 3.64"
"Dermatology (6.53) + gastroenterology (5.60) graduates received the most job offers."
"Neurologists received fewer offers (2.00) than any other specialty."

What If You Failed to Match?

One of the aspect or cause of our failure to Match residency program here in USA is wasting of time in observerships. Residency programs don’t consider observerships/research/externship as USCE (United States Clinical Experience)  for international medical graduates because whatever you do they think it’s not a quality clinical experience.

So I don’t know how much observership or externship really helps. It might help also depending on individual cases but it is my opinion that if a USA degree is mentioned like a master’s degree or strictly clinical experience like surgical assistant or something like that, it would look good on resume/CV. Honestly if you are in USA for more than 1 year just doing observership, its not gonna help. If you in USA for 3-6 months waiting for match or applying for match than it’s a good idea to do some observership/externship. People usually say observership is helpful, well it indeed but not for 2-3 years, program director might have applicants who did master or some post grad degree while in USA, so they would prefer applicants with some educational/academic activities rather than just observership/research etc..  I hope I am clear now. I have seen it myself and hopefully you will also be able to see the change in your CV when you do a USA degree.

The other thing is when you are in USA don’t waste time get some diploma or something so that even if you failed to Match for whatever reason you should always have a back up plan and something you can do. And lastly my friends “USA is not the end of world, wasting years and years in search of residency and driving cabs or working at gas station does not worth it”. If you have resources then please travel somewhere else and get your goals over there. So bottom line is “Don’t waste time while staying in USA waiting for residency.”

I am going to mention some link so that you can try them and find out, what is good for you:

1. Optometry is a degree which lets you practice as an optometrist and thinking long term you might get residency in ophthalmology. There is a school in Massachusetts, New England School of optometry, which lets foreign medical grads. finish the degree in just 2 years. 

2. Master in Public Health, (MPH). It helps you getting a master degree and residency in occupational health, preventive medicine and even family practice. One example is a link below, there are almost 26-30 schools of public health in USA and it’s easy to get admission. Search the web for school of public health.

3. Surgical Assistant.  Certified surgical assistant get good pay and great clinical experience. 

4. Master/Ph.D. degree in any basic Medical sciences like Pathology, pharmacology etc… this is offered by a lot of university programs and it’s not very hard to get into. It definitely helps in getting residency and a job. One example is a link below, there are 100’s of universities offering masters programs. search the web for your program of choice

5. Non-accredited fellowships in USA. These are fellowships offered by different intitutions like post doc research fellowships and clinical fellowships. US graduates don’t do these because they are not accredited and don’t make the eligibility criteria for board exams purposes. Some of the examples are below and you can find opportunities like these on web. The clinical fellowships require you to have ECFMG certificate, so that they could issue you a institutional permit, to work with the patients. Post Doc research fellowships could be in any field, pharmacology, pathology, biochem etc.. Clinical fellowships are in CV surgery, ENT and other subspecialties.

If you failed to Match there is also another option of “School of perfusion technology”. The perfusionist makes good money and it’s a technical work. Basically it is the person who runs the By-pass machine during cardio-thoracic surgeries. It’s a good field but schools in USA don’t emcourage IMGs to do this course but there is no harm in trying.

6. Physician Assistant is also another option if you failed to Match but most schools require that you have BS degree from USA to enter into the school.

7. Postgraduate  medical education in the other countries of the world. 

Guys, we have to help each other by spreading the information, so don’t keep the info to yourself - spread it. It might help somebody like you.

Residency Program Coordinator salary

Residency Program Coordinator Salary

Every medical graduate applying for residency in the USA should have come across a residency program coordinator or the program coordinator. Often, the emails directed to the Program Directors have to first make it past the hesitant and skeptical Program Coordinator, much to the frustration of residency aspirants. Some medical graduates have gotten smarter and manage to find the direct email addresses of program directors via pubmed searches or a simple Google search..

Well, that's BEFORE getting the residency, after you get into the program, the PCs usually become great friends to the residents.



All that is besides the point here :-) The incomes for Residency Program coordinators often parallel that of the first or second year residents themselves. Here are a few representative earnings after 1 to 2 years of experience in the field.

Houston, TX: $45,000/-
Los Angeles, CA: 49,000/-
Miami, FL: $43,000/-
New York, NY: $51,000/-
Seattle, WA: 47,000/-

National Average : $43,000/-


Here's what a sample requirements roster for a Ob-Gyn Residency Coordinator job requirement looked like on careerbuilder:

"Requires minimum of 3 years experience in an academic teaching hospital with experience with training program. Must demonstrate superior planning, and organizational skills. Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, ERAS & ACGME CPT required. Strong interpersonal and communication skills with the ability to work in a fast-paced environment are essential"

Read also:

• Residency Salaries in USA
• How to Prepare for the USMLE Step 1: Review Books