Jobs for a Surgeon Specialist

For a medical school graduate looking to become a surgeon specialist, the number of opportunities has been increasing in the past decade. New specialty areas have become available in a variety of areas, including surgery. A couple of recent examples include the addition of orthopedic sports medicine as a subspecialty of orthopedic surgery and congenital cardiac surgery as a subspecialty of thoracic surgery.

High Salaries for Surgeon Specialists

According to the annual physicians survey by the American Medical Group Association, specialist surgeons are paid among the highest salaries in all of medicine. For example, the average starting salary of a neurological surgeon is $450,000, while an orthopedic surgeon starts out, on average with a salary of $370,000. Compare that in the 2009 AMGA survey to the starting salaries for primary care physicians, among the lowest of all doctors in the survey. A pediatrician had an average starting salary of approximately $203,000, while internal medicine physicians earned an average starting salary of about $205,000.

What follows are a few of the surgical specialty areas that have been attracting medical school graduates to become surgeon specialists:

• Oral and maxillofacial surgeon. Focuses on diagnosis and treatment of injuries and diseases affecting both the appearance and the function of the face and mouth. Includes procedures for facial trauma, cosmetic surgery and deformities and birth defects.
• Otolaryngology surgeon. Focuses on care for conditions and diseases that afflict the ears, nose, throat and areas of the head and neck. Includes oncology procedures, plastic and reconstructive facial surgery and disorders involving both hearing and voice.
• Vascular surgeon. Diagnoses and treats vascular diseases, which include a wide variety of issues that restrict blood flow throughout blood vessels in the body. The majority of vascular diseases are the result of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, but other issues include trauma, congenital defects of the arteries and diseases of the arteries.
• Critical care surgery. Focuses on critically ill and injured patients and their diagnosis and care. Can involve multiple-organ issues and the ability to coordinate a medical team in a situation where the effective utilization of time from diagnosis to the beginning of treatment can be the difference between life and death.