Projected cumulative lifetime earnings of physicians
Listed in
This article is not in any list yet, why not save it to one of your lists.Abstract
Purpose
The estimated lifetime earnings of physicians are multifactorial and have not been extensively modeled. This study projects and compares lifetime earnings of US-based physicians across different career pathways.
Methods
We developed a customizable model to estimate physician lifetime earnings using data from the publicly available 2016-17 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) survey results across variable undergraduate training time, MD/DO vs MD-PhD degree programs, attending practice settings, state income tax levels during attending practice, loan repayment options, and promotion timeline. Post-tax earnings were calculated using U.S. tax codes and specialty-specific salary data. We created an interactive web-based interactive application using R Shiny to simulate individualized financial projections. App: https://physician-lifetime-earnings.shinyapps.io/physician-lifetime-earnings/ .
Results
The median cumulative lifetime earnings averaged across 19 specialties was $6,509,474. Specifically, the average was $5,167,507 across primary care specialties (family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics) and $7,696,166 across all specialties excluding primary care. Pursuing two paid undergraduate gap years (vs zero) resulted in a weighted average 5.2% (IQR: 5.2, 5.7) decrease in cumulative lifetime earnings, private practice (vs academia) resulted in a 14.7% (IQR: 8.9, 22.4) increase, and repaying loans at 30% of income (vs obtaining Public Service Loan Forgiveness) resulted in a 6.1% (IQR: 3.0, 6.5) decrease. Completing one undergraduate gap year (vs zero), a combined MD-PhD degree (vs MD/DO alone), and accelerated academic promotion at eight years to full professor (vs 14) all had minimal impact on cumulative lifetime earnings (< 3%).
Conclusion
We created a model to compare the lifetime earnings of US-based physicians across different career pathways.
