Medical oncology wage report 2024

After a 12 months of progress, the common medical oncology wage stagnated in 2023, with annual earnings of $464,000. Regardless of this plateau in pay, most oncologists report feeling pretty paid and are proud of their pay, in accordance with Medscape’s 2024 Oncologist Compensation Report. The annual report gives insights into medical oncologists’ compensation, what they discover rewarding and difficult about their Jobs, and what number of tackle supplemental work to extend their total pay.

Medical oncologists stay one of many highest-paid specialties

Oncologists reported a small 1% wage acquire between 2022 and 2023, a change from the huge 13% year-over-year enhance reported final 12 months.

Compared towards different specialists, medical oncologists ranked ninth in 2023, down a spot from final 12 months’s wage report. Nonetheless, they nonetheless earned a better wage than the common doctor wage ($363,000) and the common specialist wage ($394,000).

Most oncologists don’t select their specialty for the pay

Whereas medical oncology salaries are comparatively excessive as of late, future compensation doesn’t appear to be a driving issue for physicians who selected the specialty, with three in 4 (75%) stating pay was both a minor issue or no issue in any respect of their decision-making. A a lot smaller variety of oncologists (16%) said pay was a number one issue of their selection of specialty, whereas one in 10 (9%) mentioned IT was the primary issue.

How a lot potential pay issues in selecting oncology

This quantity is barely smaller than the 83% of physicians total who said that future pay had solely a minor or no issue of their selection of specialty.

Oncologists are total proud of their pay

When IT involves their precise observe and compensation, oncologists are break up over whether or not physicians within the U.S. are paid pretty — about half (49%) imagine that physicians, on the whole, are underpaid, whereas 45% imagine that physicians are paid nearly proper. A small proportion (6%) mentioned they thought physicians had been overpaid. When IT involves their specialty, nevertheless, 60% of oncologists report that they really feel pretty paid given their work calls for.

When in comparison with respondents from 28 different specialties, oncologists had been ranked fourth in how glad they’re with their pay — solely public Health physicians, dermatologists, and psychiatrists reported feeling happier with their compensation.

Happiness with pay: Oncologists vs. different specialties

Many oncologists tackle additional work, together with locums

Regardless of feeling comparatively happy with their pay, practically 4 in 10 oncologists (38%) report taking over additional work to spice up their revenue. Practically one-quarter (23%) tackle different medical-related work, whereas 6% do medical moonlighting to generate extra revenue. An extra 5% add extra hours to their main job, whereas 4% carry out supplemental work that isn’t medically associated.

Are oncologists taking additional work to spice up their revenue?

Moonlighting work contains locum tenens, a profession possibility that oncologist Dr. Steven Paul has pursued. With so many most cancers sufferers to deal with and a scarcity of oncologists, locum physicians can select from all kinds of assignments on a schedule that fits them. For Dr. Paul, this seems like working a couple of weeks on and some weeks off.

“You don’t have the stress of working a non-public observe,” Dr. Paul says of his locum expertise. “You don’t need to cope with billing and medical data and scheduling availability. You have got the chance simply to maintain sufferers and never cope with all the opposite stuff that goes together with a non-public observe.”

And as as to if much less work means much less pay than a typical observe, he observes, “I feel IT’s nearly as good, if not slightly higher.”

Earn extra: How locum tenens pay permits medical doctors to reside their greatest lives

What motivates medical oncologists

As is anticipated of physicians who work with a typical and sophisticated illness, one quarter (26%) of medical oncologists discover a lot of the worth of their work within the gratitude they get from their sufferers and their relationships with them.

One other 26% cite discovering solutions and diagnoses is what makes them the happiest, whereas 18% reported that making the world a greater place by serving to others is their favourite factor concerning the work.

Prime three most rewarding components of an oncologists’ job

Make a distinction: How locum tenens works for medical oncologists

That’s true for Dr. Mancusi-Ungaro, an oncologist who got here out of retirement to proceed his work. “I believed I used to be efficient in serving to people with most cancers, and once I retired, I made a decision that I’d prefer to proceed with IT,” he says about his resolution to return to his work by means of locum tenens assignments.

One other oncologist, Dr. Sarah Ali, has the same expertise from her time doing locums. Her first locum assignments aligned together with her curiosity in integrative oncology. “This specific task was simply spot on, precisely what I used to be in search of. I didn’t actually know what being a locum doctor was all about,” she says.

“I began my first day with this perspective of, ‘I’m right here to serve, I’m right here to offer no matter IT is that this workplace wants from me,’ and IT developed with a lot ease, IT was an incredible match for me in that sense,” she explains.

If you’re keen on rising your medical oncology wage, click on under to see all of our locum tenens oncology job alternatives.