10 Happiest Medical Specialties With the Most Satisfied Doctors

Our list of the 10 happiest medical specialties with the most satisfied doctors will provide some insight on which area of medicine is the best to work in.

Medicine is a vast field, holding innumerable career choices within it, none of which, as we all know, are considered easy. It takes hard work and perseverance to accomplish yourself in medicine: first a bachelor’s degree then the pain of getting into and going through medical school, and finally residency. You might hear yourself thinking, is it really that difficult? Well, this blog seems to think so, as it suggests that you will have to give up your sleep, your weekends, your health, your creativity and your family just to become a doctor. That sounds more extreme than it needs to, but we can only imagine the fulfillment a qualified doctor must feel after passing all these seemingly impossible hurdles.

While doctors undoubtedly earn much better money on an annual basis than most people in the country, it is true that most of them are not satisfied with the abominably unreasonable work-life balance they have to deal with. If we analyze doctors’ pay, their hourly wage will turn out to be less than an ordinary high school teacher’s, as proved by this informative pictorial comparing the two. According to this source, a doctor who typically works 36 years before retiring, will have done an equivalent of 54 years of work of an average American. So while a doctor’s lifetime earnings may be infinitely more than a teacher, their hourly pay is not something to be envied.

That being said, money is not the only thing that contributes to the satisfaction of a worker. Other factors come into play as well; therefore, we referred to the Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2016 to formulate our list of the happiest medical specialties with the most satisfied doctors. This report takes into account not only the matter of satisfaction with income but also considers how many physicians of a specific specialty would like to choose medicine again if given a chance. Furthermore, it also factors in whether or not these doctors would like to enter the same specialty if they start over. All that criteria together have formed an overall career satisfaction percentage that we have used to rank our list. In the case of a tie, we used the percentage of satisfaction with income as a tie breaker.

All statistics of earnings have been taken from the same source. The numbers may seem larger than usual but that’s only because Medscape has included bonuses and profit sharing in the figures as well, apart from the salary of course. An interesting thing to note here is the fact that the highest paying field according to the report, orthopedics, is not even on our list, which just stresses the fact that merely monetary benefit cannot make you love your job. Not that it plays no part at all, as not many would be willing to do their best at work if they are not being fairly compensated for it, but a person spending so much time at the same place would need something else to keep them going, or they would start thinking they have made a huge mistake coming into the field that they did. In medicine, that’s sure to be a huge issue, considering the hours they work. Stress is a massive part of a medical practitioner’s life, an aspect that greatly brings down the rate of contentment. That is indeed one of the reasons that doctors are not generally very happy with their work. Even the specialty that is number one on our list has an overall career satisfaction rate of 65 percent, which is not a lot if you ask me, especially since most of the physicians on our list make more than $300K per year. And this generous pay is not only in the United States. The 16 Highest Paying Countries for Doctors prove how well doctors are compensated all over the world.

Now, without further ado, let’s find out which are the happiest medical specialties with the most satisfied doctors:

10. Anesthesiology

Overall satisfaction rate: 54%

Anesthesiologists are the kind people that administer drugs to a patient before a major surgery in order to put them to sleep and make them completely unaware of their surroundings. While anesthesia is obviously necessary, it is also a huge responsibility. Anesthesiologists are trained on how to handle the drugs they administer and how to inject them in a proper manner because if there is one drop too many, it could be dangerous. With annual benefits of $360,000 on average, these physicians can certainly strive to be a little careful. Let’s see what’s next on our list of happiest medical specialties with the most satisfied doctors.

9. Critical Care

Overall satisfaction rate: 55%

Often called intensive care medicine, critical care caters to the need of those patients who require constant observation, surveillance and the support of machines to live and breathe. These practitioners have to look after terminal patients on a regular basis, which is bound to be a difficult job. They do, though, earn $306K on an annual basis for their hard work.

8. Pediatrics

Overall satisfaction rate: 55%

Pediatricians, next in line on the list of happiest medical specialties with the most satisfied doctors deal with children’s healthcare ranging from newborns to late teens. Perhaps tending to kids is one of the sources of their job satisfaction, considering that their pay is relatively lower than others. Pediatrics is the lowest paying field out of all the specialties on our list at $204K per year.

7. HIV/ID

Overall satisfaction rate: 56%

Medical experts of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and other immune deficiencies mark the seventh spot on our list of the happiest medical specialties with the most satisfied doctors. Their pay is one of the lowest out of all the specialties on our list, which just goes to show that salary is not all that matters when measuring career satisfaction.

6. Gastroenterology

Overall satisfaction rate: 57%

We are continuing our list of happiest medical specialties with the most satisfied doctors with gastroenterologists that deal with the entire path of the digestive system. These specialists earn about $380K every year and yet, surprisingly, out of all the types of doctors on our list, gastroenterologists are the least satisfied when it comes to salary. This field of medicine is also pretty much dominated by men, as only 15 percent of these physicians are women. But 61 percent of gastroenterologists said that they would choose medicine again while 60 percent said they would choose the same specialty again, which is a high percentage for doctors. They’re not one of the happiest medical specialties for nothing!

5. Emergency Medicine

Overall satisfaction rate: 57%

Emergency medicine deals with, you guessed it, emergencies. These specialists always need to be on their toes, ready to serve patients who will always come unannounced. Maybe that’s why only 44 percent of these physicians would select the same specialty again if given the opportunity. However, they are quite comfortable with their salaries and benefits which amount to an even $322K.

4. Psychiatry

Overall satisfaction rate: 58%

While other doctors treat the physical body, psychiatrists have taken responsibility to treat mental illnesses. In the past, mental illness was often frowned upon and not considered a “real disease,” but with people finally opening up to the concept, and with awareness of the topic growing, more and more patients are recognizing their need for treatment. This is exactly why the US is suffering from a severe shortage of psychiatrists. This and the fact that medical students don’t generally opt for this field, which is strange considering its high rate of satisfaction.

3. Pathology

Overall satisfaction rate: 58%

The next on our list of happiest medical specialties with the most satisfied doctors are pathologists that are not traditional doctors, as their work deals more with research than treatments. Pathology deals with the study of disease: how they exhibit themselves, what their causes are, how they initiate etc. This discipline is extremely significant in the world of modern medicine as it provides considerable help in the diagnoses and consequently the treatments for rare or difficult to detect diseases. And it turns out that researching diseases is actually quite a satisfying job, perfectly evident from the contentment percentage standing at 58 percent.

2. Oncology

Overall satisfaction rate: 59%

One would think that the person who treats cancer, the disease with a dreadfully high death rate, would be pretty pessimistic, but the truth is actually quite the opposite. Then again, it must be very fulfilling to help someone who is battling death every single day. Cancer death rates in the US have decreased from 2003 to 2012: 1.8% per year among men and 1.4% per year among women, and these amazing statistics must surely be a source of peace for these medical specialists.

1. Dermatology

Overall satisfaction rate: 65%

Out of all the medical specialists on the Medscape report, it seems that skin specialists are not only the most content with their remuneration but also the most likely to select the same specialty again if given the chance, causing them to be ranked number one on our list of the 10 happiest medical specialties with the most satisfied doctors. After all, with an average annual earning of $381K, it’s hard not to be pleased!