Name: Lowest Paid Doctors by HOURLY Rate (in 2026)
Uploaded: 2026-03-21T17:38:28.000Z
Duration: 5 min 34 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Some doctors earn $115 an hour, others earn 262.

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We took every major specialty's annual salary and divided it by how many hours they actually work each week.

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The results completely reshuffled the pay rankings.

Which specialties are actually getting the worst deal in medicine?

Dr. Jubbal medschoolinsiders.com Starting us off at number five is family medicine.

At $136 per hour, family physicians provide comprehensive care for patients of all ages.

From pediatric geriatrics and from preventive care to chronic disease management, they are the front line of medicine.

Family medicine Doctors earn around $319,000 a year, working roughly 48 hours per week.

The lifestyle is solid, it's clinic based with predictable hours and little to no overnight call.

On the training side, you're looking at a three year residency, which is one of the shortest paths to becoming an attending in all of medicine.

Family medicine is also consistently the least competitive specialty to match, a near perfect match rate of 98.8% and the lowest average step 2 CK score at 244.

Check out the competitiveness data yourself for every medical specialty@specialtyrank.com at number four is internal medicine.

At $131 per hour, internists provide primary and specialty care for adults.

They manage complex patients with multiple chronic conditions and serve as the gateway to subspecialty care.

At $326,000 annually, with around 51 hours per week, internal medicine sits squarely in the middle for lifestyle.

The hours aren't extreme, but they're not light either.

Internal medicine is the largest specialty in the match, filling over 11,000 positions in 2025, more than double the next most popular specialty training is a three year residency.

After that you have two main paths primary care in the clinic or inpatient hospital medicine.

Alternatively, you can also pursue one of many fellowships, from cardiology to gastroenterology to oncology and many more.

We break down all internal medicine subspecialties in a previous video linked in the description, but

keep in mind in some cases, training longer actually means making less annually.

Number three is infectious disease at $123 per hour.

Infectious disease specialists diagnose and treat complex infections, from HIV to tuberculosis to emerging pathogens.

They played a critical role during the COVID 19 pandemic and remain essential for antibiotic stewardship in hospitals.

At $321,000 annually with 53 hours per week, infectious disease requires more hours than many other cognitive specialties, but

That's what lands it this low on the list.

Infectious disease is also one of the fellowship options of internal medicine.

It first requires a three year internal medicine residency followed by a two year infectious disease fellowship for a total of five years and one of the lowest paying subspecialties in medicine.

Every specialty so far is either primary care or a COGN subspecialty.

No surgical specialty comes close to the bottom five.

Despite surgeons working significantly longer hours.

They simply earn too much for the math to work against them because procedures, whether surgical or non surgical, pay better.

At $121 per hour, endocrinologists treat hormonal disorders including diabetes, thyroid disease, osteoporosis and metabolic conditions.

With diabetes affecting over 37 million Americans, demand for endocrinologists high.

But despite the growing patient population, reimbursement for cognitive specialties hasn't kept pace with procedural fields.

At $291,000 annually with around 49 hours per week, endocrinology offers a manageable lifestyle but modest compensation.

Endocrinology is another fellowship of internal medicine.

After a three year IM residency, you'll need a two year endocrinology fellowship.

And at the bottom of our list is Pediatrics.

At $115 per hour, pediatricians provide comprehensive care for infants, children and adolescents.

It's a specialty driven by passion for working with kids and families, not financial reward.

At $265,000 annually with around 47 hours per week, pediatrics offers a reasonable lifestyle but the lowest compensation in all of medicine.

That combination puts it firmly at the bottom of the hourly earnings rankings.

Training for pediatrics is a three year residency, among the shortest in medicine year after year.

It's also consistently the second least competitive specialty to match into, after family medicine, with a 99.7% match rate.

The gap between the top and bottom is striking.

Orthopedic surgery at $262 per hour is more than double.

This reduced pay leads some to believe the myth that the healthcare system cares less about children.

Pediat make less simply because of how the American fee for service model works.

The reduced pay is partly due to many children being on Medicaid, which has lower reimbursement rates than commercial insurance.

And children generally require fewer procedures than adults, which means less money for hospitals.

If you want to dive deeper and understand what it's like to pursue each of these specialties.

Check out our so youo Want To Be playlist, which now has over 50 videos, each dedicated to a specific Dr.