Physicians in the U.S. are facing down a number of stresses in the coming year, causing many to reconsider their long-held careers, according to a new study from medical networking site Doximity. In collaboration with Curative Talent, Doximity assembled the 2023 Physician Compensation Report using responses from over 190,000 U.S. doctors over six years—with over 31,000 responses coming in from full-time U.S. physicians in 2022 alone—in order to better identify and understand U.S. health care employment trends. And the news—gender pay gaps, increased work-related burnout, Medicare payment cuts—is not good. Doximity reports that the most recruited specialties on their site in 2022 were in primary care, followed by psychiatry. The latter specialty was experiencing shortfalls even before the pandemic, a situation that is projected by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to worsen in the coming years. The AAMC also expects a shortfall of between 17,800 and 48,000 primary care physicians by 2034. Courtesy of Doximity. Burnout may be contributing to these shortfalls, particularly among primary care physicians. Overall, in their survey, Doximity found 86% of respondents reported being overworked, with 35.6% seriously considering early retirement and 16.1% looking at changing their career. Moreover, 73% of female physician respondents reported being overworked enough to consider other options, while 63% of male respondents reported the same.

20 specialties with the lowest compensation

Looking at compensation, the specialties with the lowest average annual compensation were found in the pediatric and primary care specialties. Courtesy of Doximity. Doximity also found that several pediatric specialties, including pediatric infectious disease and pediatric emergency medicine, experienced the largest increases in average annual compensation in 2022, at 4.9% and 2.6% growth respectively. Preventive medicine also grew at 4.0%. However, Doximity also reported that compensation was stagnant or down in many specialties, with preventive medicine having fallen from 12.6% growth in 2021.

Related: Primary care doctor shortage: Are we reaching a tipping point?

Overall, the report showed that average pay for physicians in 2022 experienced a decline of 2.4%, compared to an increase of 3.8% in 2021. "It is clear physician salaries did not keep pace with the high rate of inflation in 2022, which reached a 40-year high of 9.1% in June, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI)," the report states. "As a result, many doctors experienced a decline in real income, as inflation ran rampant." See our slideshow above for the 10 specialties with the highest average annual compensation in 2022, and click here for the full study.