National Average Income For Medical Doctors in Canada

What Does Doctor Make in Year
Recently I’m curious about the average annual income for physicians in Canada. I mean how high can their incomes go? I did a search online but came across numerous results unsatisfactorily. Some websites use data that are decade old; some use data without any real statistics; some use data that are based on individual inputs.

I was about to give up my search, till I found the following information from BC government website. Mission accomplished. :) Although the statistics is for BC, it can be used as a guide for the rest of Canada.

Ophthalmology, GI, Cardio, and Radiology are medical specialists among the highest earning groups with annual incomes as high as more than $600,000. That’s pretty impressive. What an eye opener! After working for 2 years, they are already millionaires!!! Education definitely pays off in this field. Maybe I should consider a career change?!?! 😐

However, as far as I know, ophthalmology is one of the toughest medical specialties to get into. The number of medical students trained in this field is usually in single digit per year. :(

So, would you consider a career in medicine? Recession-proof for sure!

Salaries for Medical Practitioners in British Columbia Year 2007-2008

* Yellow = median annual salary
* Reference: BC Health

Specialty <10k 10k
to
49k
50k
to
99k
100k
to
199k
200k
to
299k
300k
to
399k
400k
to
599k
>600k
General Physician 359 551 619 1,446 1,224 452 145 10
Dermatologist 4 4 7 10 11 13 13 2
Neurologist 3 13 13 21 24 11 13 1
Psychiatrist 25 68 123 261 120 32 8 0
Obstetrician & Gynaecologist 16 20 15 38 49 42 32 9
Ophthalmologist 6 7 8 18 13 18 36 73
General Surgeon 7 15 11 27 41 49 52 10
Neurosurgeon 1 2 1 6 2 10 9 5
Orthopaedic Surgeon 8 20 16 31 49 47 31 2
Plastic Surgeon 5 9 7 15 23 11 4 2
Cardiac Surgeon 1 1 0 2 5 5 8 2
Urologist 2 7 5 8 7 21 23 8
Paediatrician 29 36 28 50 51 20 13 1
Internal Medicine 15 40 24 34 44 37 26 6
Radiologist 5 13 2 23 24 22 52 140
Laboratory Medicine 15 11 4 9 4 2 9 72

 

Specialty <10k 10k
to
49k
50k
to
99k
100k
to
199k
200k
to
299k
300k
to
399k
400k
to
599k
>600k
Anesthesiologist 19 39 37 96 166 82 22 0
Paediatric Cardiologist 0 1 0 1 1 1 2 0
Physical Medicine 9 12 8 13 9 5 1 0
Geriatric Medicine 2 6 8 11 1 1 0 0
Cardiologist 0 3 5 7 4 12 30 40
Emergency Medicine 18 8 3 9 4 8 0 0
Medical Microbiologist 0 2 0 1 0 0 1 8
Nuclear Medicine 1 1 0 0 0 1 2 18
Rheumatologist 1 3 4 17 16 9 3 0
Clinical Immunologist 1 1 0 5 4 6 7 2
Medical Genetics 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0
Vascular Surgeon 0 4 1 2 3 12 10 0
Thoracic Surgeon 3 0 2 2 1 1 4 1
Respirologist 1 5 5 13 15 19 10 6
Endocrinologist 1 2 8 9 18 7 1 0
Gastroenterologist 2 2 3 6 8 13 27 10
Nephrologist 2 3 8 10 8 8 20 4
Infectious Diseases 3 7 3 10 5 2 1 2
Hematology Oncologist 2 8 7 9 3 4 3 1
Total 569 928 991 2231 1973 1000 638 442

11 Responses to Medical Doctor Salary … not as high as you think?!

    1. 5e1bd21aa0e4ba0b63598517320c0155?s=40&d=wavatar&r=g
      Nabi on 2013/10/21 at 5:44 pm

      Governments always skew the statistics–present gross payments that don’t consider massive overheads even sometimes go to more than one physician. Lots of specialists, too, spend a lot of money equipping their clinics to higher standards than you’d find in hospitals.

      Reply

    1. 484238dfbae85636c3986f9fef04bca6?s=40&d=wavatar&r=g
      ryan on 2012/08/02 at 6:36 pm

      do doctors earn their money by teaching as a professor independently as from just being a doctor?

      Reply

    1. fb1e245180098b752fea0ee0ffb289a7?s=40&d=wavatar&r=g
      Mitry on 2012/03/11 at 4:19 pm

      Nuclear medicine shows a high median salary, is that right?
      Does this stands for Nuclear medicine alone or the combined radio-diagnosis nuclear medicine speciality?

      Reply

    1. 93fbc82635f3e137c65b1078993ab4b9?s=40&d=wavatar&r=g
      ernest musgrave on 2012/02/10 at 7:57 pm

      is Canada a socialized medicine? Do MD receive a monthly wage?

      Reply

    1. c07decd386d1c90447cf0677a103dec9?s=40&d=wavatar&r=g
      2ndYrMedStudent on 2009/08/12 at 8:17 pm

      Salaries for any physician that has finished his/her residency will generally be 100k-300k for the first 5 years. The most common salaries are 120k-250k depending on the speciality. For salaries that are more than 300k there usually is a good reason. Reasons can include things like high overhead cost, high malpractice insurance, extensive hours, high liability, high risk, very heavy scheduling, fast cycling of patients (i.e. having to average interpreting 40+ radiograph results from 20 patients an hour, vs. seeing 2+ patients an hour for general counselling), very limited number of people in the profession due to extensively long study-time (including res, fellowship + other), or private practise.

      Reply

    1. db581af2f1c1094dda1aa5ba513edf34?s=40&d=wavatar&r=g
      DeathByLOL on 2009/06/12 at 4:18 am

      They’re dead losers. LOL

      Reply

    1. f83257c81174580d093621ce919c6522?s=40&d=wavatar&r=g
      grillmonster on 2009/06/12 at 3:56 am

      How come some docs make less than 10k? :(

      Reply
        • fdfbdca533bd7f0553c333f0a3317746?s=40&d=wavatar&r=g
          Ryan A. Smith on 2009/06/14 at 5:25 pm

          @grillmonster, I don’t know why some doctors earn less, because BC government site doesn’t state any reasons.

          The BC Health Report: To maintain confidentiality, Public Health and Occupational Medicine are rolled into General Practice, and Osteopathy is rolled into Chiropractors.

          I suppose, it could also be due to maternity leaves, new doctors, student interns, etc.

          Reply

        • f4955459da16a8b3abd94e05749ae09a?s=40&d=wavatar&r=g
          tbtbtb on 2012/04/17 at 8:04 am

          Way late to the party – but the information presented is simply the payouts of the government to physicians for services rendered (not incomes of the physicians). Many physicians have salaried positions with hospitals, receive alternative payments (sessional payments, etc), and do other things to earn income (teach, do speaking, research, etc). The only activities being captured here are direct-to-government-billed medical care.

          For a non-specialist, on average, it’s basically $500 / half day. For a specialist, it can be anywhere from $700-2000 per half-day.

          Reply

    1. 04e0a512145349196ac150232b2c3507?s=40&d=wavatar&r=g
      SuperDave on 2009/06/12 at 12:00 am

      thats not very high. i earn way more than that. :)

      Reply

    1. b796dece09cf4d9c2b8d5503fffe0413?s=40&d=wavatar&r=g
      William XO on 2009/06/10 at 5:23 am

      I wonder how many hours a week they work. Overtime? On-call?

      Reply

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About the Author

Tobias Simmons is a personal finance blogger born in Ontario and based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He's no Doctor of Science or financial expert but is a self-taught student giving advice for the average peer.