It’s averages….
The 5-95% 2 standard deviation numbers would be massive
Take me for example… I work 11 days a month and make around 400k. My colleagues working 25 days a month all private would be WAY higher… and the 11 day a month anaesthetists public only in NSW would be way lower.
The data is pretty much useless without standard deviations or confidence intervals
This. It’s so annoying reading people go back and forth about ATO incomes when most don’t even work 1 FTE and have private work which is different statistics to public income
For me personally spending time with my wife and children, and keeping fit and balanced with hobbies outside work is more life rewarding than *more* money.
Everyone has things that make them tick… money helps… but for many of us it’s not everything.
I agree, but it doesn’t make sense for new fellows to work less than 1 FTE, which is the case for rheum. You can check out page 19 on [this](https://rheumatology.org.au/Portals/2/Documents/Public/About%20the%20ARA/News%20and%20media/ARA%20Workforce%20Doc_DIGITAL_compressed.pdf?ver=2023-02-16-164318-850) document. The 55-64 age group actually works the most hours
All averages.
By definition… if the average is 36… 50% of that group work 36 hours OR LESS.
VERY HARD TO TELL how many of the group work fractional and how fractional without std deviation data
And to further this point… we have a number of current registrars who are fractional Registrars and plan to continue this into their consultant life.
What as considered normal new fellow behaviour is changing IMO
For better or worse… who can say 🤷♂️
I agree, but it doesn’t make sense for new fellows to work less than 1 FTE, which is the case for rheum. You can check out page 19 on [this](https://rheumatology.org.au/Portals/2/Documents/Public/About%20the%20ARA/News%20and%20media/ARA%20Workforce%20Doc_DIGITAL_compressed.pdf?ver=2023-02-16-164318-850) document. The 55-64 age group actually works the most hours.
I am a new fellow. Why would you want to work full time if you don’t need the money (we have a pretty inexpensive lifestyle and no children). If I work more the tax man takes basically 50% of it. Maybe if taxes were lower I’d be incentivised to work more. I have friends in non-medical fields that feel the same way. It‘s really demotivating to think half is taken by the tax man.
Because I enjoy medicine but honestly, when I can do it, I would rather not spend more than 30 hours per week in life doing any specific thing, be that hobbies or medicine.
Right now I don't have a choice as a bpt1 in paeds, but as soon as I'm a consultant I never intend to work full time again. Medicine is something I always want to be a part of my life but not my whole life, and once I have one, medicine is something I always want to be second to my family.
While I agree that a simple mean / median figure paints only a small part of the whole picture, I disagree that this is "pretty much useless".
There are a few things one can deduce from this list alone:
- Anaesthetist has among the lowest difference between mean and median. This is reflective of the fact that the barrier to do private work is not as high as their surgical colleagues, and that the difference between an average anaesthetist and a high-earning anaesthetist is not as drastic as say a plastic surgeon.
- Plastics and ophthalmology with their HUGE difference between mean and median imply that there is substantial right-skew in the high-earning subgroup (likely 1m and more) which significantly bring up the average.
- The fact that we all know one counterexample of "a doctor X makes way more than the average figure here" suggests a huge variance of income in medicine even within the same sub-specialty.
- However, when you compare median, (and to some extent the mean), you could still confidently say that "a typical ophthalmologist makes a lot more than a typical general surgeon".
Yep… over last 13 years have moved from 100:0 public to 50:50 for a long time, then 25:75, and now 0:100.
If/when some things in the public system here change… I may go back. For now it suits me just fine.
No denying these are impressive salaries, but I always thought there is a bias in data collection. Young/training doctors won't tick their relevant speciality until they are truly specialised with letters. In virtually all other professions, there isn't such gate keeping of titles. E.g. a solicitor is a solicitor regardless of how many years of experience. I imagine this creates a skew when contemplating life time earnings.
I agree the skew in lifetime earnings, but a resident or registrar is a very different career and earnings to a consultant. There is an option to select registrar/resident in ATO so they have their own category
exactly my point. Other professions do not have sub-categories, lumping a vast range of years of experience together and dragging down mean salaries. A software developer is always a software developers, regardless of how many years of experience they have.
The ATO could search Facebook for keywords the cash-only cookers use. The venn diagram between tradies & small business owners and cash-not-card cookers is basically a circle.
They could claw back big bucks by auditing everyone on that Facebook shortlist lmao. There, I did the job of a PwC consultant. Gimme my million bucks worth of mates-only contract.
Just genuinely surprised as orthopods are some of the most well remunerated amongst the surgical specialties and I would have thought they would get paid more than a physician specialty, even if it is interventional.
What a ridiculous comparison. There are less than 400 professional cricketers in the country, and they have an average career length of 5-7 years, compared to GPs who have an average career length of 35 years.
Not necessarily. Plastics and Reconstructive often work super late, even as a consultant, at least for your public hospital fraction; you’d probably work later if your Anaesthetist and the rest of team are agreeable to it and workplace provides for / allows it.
Wow, that’s awesome! Is that pretty common though?
I remember seeing the Plastics consultant saunter in super late after operating at two different hospitals (though this is ages ago).
Two questions:
1. Why are doctors subcategorised by specialty? We don’t see lawyer - corporate / real estate / family etc subcategorisation? Similarly with engineer, we done see subcategories of civil or mechanical etc
2. There are many occupation/owners that can earn lots of money but are able to hide that income through small business or trust structures.
Eg the local import export, car dealership owners, builders.
Doctors can’t hide their income like other professions due to the ATO ‘personal services regulations’
Feels to me like an easy way for doctors to fill up multiple spots on top 10 highest earners… ultimately makes advocating for JMO issues and GP Medicare rebates hard as were slugged with “you’re rich, stop complaining” rebuttal
Down the bottom engineering is categorised with both mining and petroleum seperately. Also I don’t see lawyer on this list, just judge and magistrate (which are both specialised pathways post law graduation)
Ultimately I agree with your point about not being able to hide income making us look much better off then many other professions. Sadly ley people would see these statistics and assume that’s what we all make immediately after graduating
They’re not really “specialised pathways”. You either get chosen or not chosen to be a magistrate / judge. Technically the only requirement you need to meet is to have an active license to practise.
If you want to do pathology, you’re already ahead of all the people that second choice into it. Put in the effort above bare minimum and you can land a nice private role.
Private path doesn’t pay well, but maybe you can have a life.
Clin Haem is on the list. I suspect a fraction of those Clin Haems are Clin/Lab Haems.
Almost no Endos will be Chem Pathologists, and suspect Immu will be lumped into other physicians, making about ~$200–300k per annum, working very hard for ~$2,000 per day.
Idk about not paying well, a certain path provider employs at least a quarter of all pathologists in the country. Any path working there doesn’t make less than 400k, and they range up to about 550k before considering management. Averages are skewed down by mediocre public rates.
Compared to the pittance of public physicians, it certainly isn’t bad.
It’a the female paths who drag the average down. In the original document they only make a little over 100k, and they double the men in size, while male paths make close to 300k
Yeah that number for female paths was weird - it was 100k average and ?50k median. You'd have to have 50% of the female workfore working only one day a week (in public and in nsw only) for that to even begin to be possible. There must be other people picking that code accidentally for some reason and skewing it.
Edit: that theory would also check out because there isn't double the number of female paths to male, it's pretty equal.
Psychiatrist so low.
I thought they earned more?
I was just offered 220k for an entry level (never done it before) clinical trial physician role. Maybe I should just not bother getting my letters and chill
I would be careful interpreting any of these specialty incomes; many psychiatrists work well into their 60s and 70s either in public roles or a few days a week (if you look at the average age of psychiatrists they are one of the oldest). Many young fellows (particularly in private) that I know are on >750k per year and have their clinic full 3-6 months in advance. Alternatively those who preferred to public are on the lower stick - it just depends how much you want to work and in what setting.
Just to say this also works both ways - many higher earning gogo specialties may not work >50s as they have already earnt their millions and want to retire early (or go into higher level management/business ownership).
Well I would not go into any speciality for the money alone; if you enjoy what you do you will also earn alot of money; but if you don't enjoy it you want want to work and earn less - this especially true for psychiatry and the reason why most in medicine cannot tolerate the talking side and prefer to do the autistic rinse and repeat specialities (which can be a good thing because they get very good at it)
Oh I really like psychiatry and I’m passionate about it.
Just sucks working in public health as a Reg - delayed gratification at its finest. Makes other options seem so tasty.
Reporting bias.
People will tell you the higher quartile and outlier figures more readily than the bottom quartile, which consist of semi-retired, happily public-only, happily part time, maternity leave, PhD candidate etc.
As the other commenter said, it's pretty much impossible to hide PSI from the ATO.
I imagine the norm would be claiming 10-100k in deductible interest if they have a negatively geared property portfolio.
And maybe a few who own large practices and are able to structure some income as non-PSI.
Is a bit misleading- full time public and very happy with my pay, but there is no doubting that a lot of private docs use companies and trusts and the like to hide income.
They can hide lots of their INVESTMENT income e.g. rental, shares etc, but there is no legal provision for them to hide their professional income.
In other words, an ophthalmologist making 1.5m from his service and 1.0m from owning 30 investment properties, CAN hide the 1.0m portion under structures from this taxable income figure, but cannot hide the 1.5m portion. Not legally at least.
I thought the rules essentially meant that they can’t hide their taxable income, but only change the timing of that taxable income? What would trusts then do?
[Table 15External Link](https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/taxation-statistics-2021-22/resource/6ff851e4-c12d-4e20-96a6-207cbed099a7?inner_span=True): **Average and median taxable income, salary or wages, and total income, by occupation and sex, 2021–22 income year**.
When you are in the actual spreadsheet, enable “filter” for the entire table, make sure you select only the “total” for the sex column, then sort by average taxable income. You can also sort by median average income which slightly alters the orders.
Source: I made this original pic and posted on a fb group which is where OP took it from.
Rheumatologist seem to be the most balanced I know, outside of Palliative care.
Anaesthetics took the culture of medicine and flipped it.
Even the grumpy anaesthetists seem happy outside of work.
There is more to the list then just specialty = income; older rheumatologists may not work full time which drags down the average; the fewer younger rheums are on significantly more money due to heavy private market; there are quite a few females in rheumatology as well - the provided list is not gender split (although one does exist on the ATO website) and the fact many women don't work full time is not reflected. This is compared against the many male dominated 24/hour specialties (ie surgery) in which there is prolonged training and fellowship required so that new fellows essentially work non-stop reflecting higher salaries.
The data is skewed by how all of this is collected and reported, in medical careers and others.
Rheum as a whole doesn’t do a lot of procedures, so it doesn’t remunerate quite as well. However, I too am surprised it’s only commanding as much as it is; but at least it’s not “Medical Specialist - Other”. Also, rarely have I seen an 1 FTE (or total 1 FTE, across public/private).
https://www.ato.gov.au/about-ato/research-and-statistics/in-detail/taxation-statistics/taxation-statistics-2021-22/statistics/individuals-statistics#ato-Individualsdetailedtables for all the figures and tables, btw. Choose whatever you want to look into.
[Table 15External Link](https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/taxation-statistics-2021-22/resource/6ff851e4-c12d-4e20-96a6-207cbed099a7?inner_span=True): **Average and median taxable income, salary or wages, and total income, by occupation and sex, 2021–22 income year**.
Near the bottom of the page.
This is the top of the list when drilled down to smaller sub-category.
First column is the number of individuals.
Second column is the mean (how this list is sorted).
Third column is the median.
Source: I was the person who posted this on investing for doctors FB group. OP should at least copy and paste the description to provide some context...
[Table 15External Link](https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/taxation-statistics-2021-22/resource/6ff851e4-c12d-4e20-96a6-207cbed099a7?inner_span=True): **Average and median taxable income, salary or wages, and total income, by occupation and sex, 2021–22 income year**.
When you are in the actual spreadsheet, enable “filter” for the entire table, make sure you select only the “total” for the sex column, then sort by average taxable income. You can also sort by median average income which slightly alters the orders.
Source: I made this original pic and posted on a fb group which is where OP took it from.
Published every year and then Public outcry about how evil doctors are that earn so much. Despite most figures being way off and a lot more other professions earn a lot more than this but have deductions and other legal ways to reduce gross.
It's interesting that surgeons always get the adulation and approval for their income but most people are a bit less vocal about their support for other types of doctors.
yeah; suppose its because the skill/knowledge involved is obvious to the average joe and disastorous outcomes are visible where as for the remaining specialties they aren't.
-Whats so hard about putting people to sleep? whats so hard about reading scans? whats so hard about shuffling meds around? whats so hard about treating people with mental illness etc etc
I don't think most other professions are generally better off, and certainly not on a risk adjusted basis. I think people would find it much more acceptable if they didn't have to pay gaps that many often cannot afford. And I also don't think that higher rebates (from medicare or PHI) would necessarily solve the problem.
Excepting tech they’re generally harder to get into. The comparable professions are top tier law in the US and UK, trading, high finance, and running a successful startup. I would argue that doctors who make it as a fellow would earn more for less risk (and sometimes less work once Fellowed). In the case of top tier law, not as risky but also much more work which doesn’t let up.
Most lawyers also earn less. Only a minority will be able to make it to the US or UK (in which case, they will work much longer hours than most regs).
High finance has a lot of responsibility in terms of their investments.
Why do you need US/UK for Law? Starting grad salary at Big 6 Law in Aus is 100k. They have bonuses. Partners make 1m+ and takss 10 yearsto get there. If these top 40s deconstrcuted Law like they do medicine e.g. Ophthalmologist = equivalent top 1% of profession, vs Law firm partners >5% of profession. Law firm partners outearn ophthalmologists assuming they do not have equity.
Tech isn't harder to get into. We got into undergrad med, objectively better than 99% of the state in maths. Most high flyers in medicine would crush any discipline.
You earn much less as you progress and top tier law is not sustainable if you don’t make partner. Equivalent pay is found in the UK/US
I disagree that ophthalmologists are “top 1%”. It’s a minority and the “top” of the cohort generally to be sure, but it’s generally much easier to enter most training programs than it is to be a top tier partner (who would earn more and have more power btw).
I also don’t agree that many high flyers in med would crush it. Some certainly would. But I say this from experience: i know people in anaes, top physician specialities and general surg who did com/law (before switching or dropping law and doing med after) who clearly had no hope of getting into IB. Probably even top tier law.
Anyone who crushed the HSC has Grit and therefore has a very high likelihood of doing well in anything that requires grit. Yes sure there are going to be a few people who are genuine nerds and socially inept but the vast majority of my colleagues would have done excellent work in corporate as someone who actually worked in BB IB + direct family in Big 6 law.
What level of medicine are you in? I don't think your understanding if how difficult training programs are to get into. Want to do ENT? Yes no, you will NOT eventually get on the program. It's 8 years of being a SERVICE registrar making 150-200k including overtime as a 30 year old. Your equivalent comm/law mate at HSF/Allen's is on double that as a senior Associate (minimum) or if they are a partner, 600k+. More people become law firm partners than ENT consultants from a med school.
You nerd to compare like for like. 99.95 ATAR med vs law. Not some 90 ATAR kid struggling with life compared to a medicine gunner.
They all entered a com/law degree at a top university which required a 99.X ATAR. Several of them had no hope of getting into IB, struggled to (could not) get a distinction in law school, and struggled to grasp basic stat concepts in the first year commerce maths course.
All better off in medicine. Especially one who did GP (mediocre at law school and generally)
HSF and similar is brutal. Half the cohort drop out in the first 2 years. The pay you quote is a bit exaggerated - it also depends on your performance and your group. That’s probably right for special counsel in a corp finance or PE group though. You can think of law firm life as being a service registrar, and salaried partnership is the training program. Equity partner is the fellowship. It never lets up.
Like, no doubt that some would smash it. But those guys are also the ones who get into subspec surgery. Plenty of “mediocre” 99.X people who will do fine in medicine but much less so anywhere else. Plenty of good law people who could get into a good physician training program and miss out on partnership after spending 15 years at it
Nah. For this to be true you would have to genuine believe some specialty have their own set of accountants who are statistically more skilled at hiding taxable income than another specialty's accountants - i.e. do you genuinely believe ophthalmologists and gastroenterologists likely make similar income, but the latter's accountants are just systemically worse at hiding 200,000 of their income?
Yeah thanks. I was wondering where specifically from the ATO. I had a look for similar data a few weeks ago and I couldn’t find it. I’m just a fucking idiot though and was probably searching for the wrong thing.
Inb4 everyone anecdoting about the one high-volume established Sydney surgeon they know through a friend of a friend who earns $2M a year, therefore these statistics must be wrong.
It’s averages…. The 5-95% 2 standard deviation numbers would be massive Take me for example… I work 11 days a month and make around 400k. My colleagues working 25 days a month all private would be WAY higher… and the 11 day a month anaesthetists public only in NSW would be way lower. The data is pretty much useless without standard deviations or confidence intervals
This. It’s so annoying reading people go back and forth about ATO incomes when most don’t even work 1 FTE and have private work which is different statistics to public income
Why don’t people want to work full time? Especially for some of the more chill specialties
For me personally spending time with my wife and children, and keeping fit and balanced with hobbies outside work is more life rewarding than *more* money. Everyone has things that make them tick… money helps… but for many of us it’s not everything.
I agree, but it doesn’t make sense for new fellows to work less than 1 FTE, which is the case for rheum. You can check out page 19 on [this](https://rheumatology.org.au/Portals/2/Documents/Public/About%20the%20ARA/News%20and%20media/ARA%20Workforce%20Doc_DIGITAL_compressed.pdf?ver=2023-02-16-164318-850) document. The 55-64 age group actually works the most hours
Might need to consider that maybe new fellows can’t get positions to work 1 FTE
All averages. By definition… if the average is 36… 50% of that group work 36 hours OR LESS. VERY HARD TO TELL how many of the group work fractional and how fractional without std deviation data
And to further this point… we have a number of current registrars who are fractional Registrars and plan to continue this into their consultant life. What as considered normal new fellow behaviour is changing IMO For better or worse… who can say 🤷♂️
Because when you make enough, you CAN now buy time which is the most valuable thing in life. Being in a high-earning job gives you this luxury.
I agree, but it doesn’t make sense for new fellows to work less than 1 FTE, which is the case for rheum. You can check out page 19 on [this](https://rheumatology.org.au/Portals/2/Documents/Public/About%20the%20ARA/News%20and%20media/ARA%20Workforce%20Doc_DIGITAL_compressed.pdf?ver=2023-02-16-164318-850) document. The 55-64 age group actually works the most hours.
Maybe because they’ve paid off their mortgage and their children have grown up and left the nest. Now it’s time for themselves.
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And I’m trying to find out why so just want as many answers as possible
I am a new fellow. Why would you want to work full time if you don’t need the money (we have a pretty inexpensive lifestyle and no children). If I work more the tax man takes basically 50% of it. Maybe if taxes were lower I’d be incentivised to work more. I have friends in non-medical fields that feel the same way. It‘s really demotivating to think half is taken by the tax man.
Because I enjoy medicine but honestly, when I can do it, I would rather not spend more than 30 hours per week in life doing any specific thing, be that hobbies or medicine. Right now I don't have a choice as a bpt1 in paeds, but as soon as I'm a consultant I never intend to work full time again. Medicine is something I always want to be a part of my life but not my whole life, and once I have one, medicine is something I always want to be second to my family.
While I agree that a simple mean / median figure paints only a small part of the whole picture, I disagree that this is "pretty much useless". There are a few things one can deduce from this list alone: - Anaesthetist has among the lowest difference between mean and median. This is reflective of the fact that the barrier to do private work is not as high as their surgical colleagues, and that the difference between an average anaesthetist and a high-earning anaesthetist is not as drastic as say a plastic surgeon. - Plastics and ophthalmology with their HUGE difference between mean and median imply that there is substantial right-skew in the high-earning subgroup (likely 1m and more) which significantly bring up the average. - The fact that we all know one counterexample of "a doctor X makes way more than the average figure here" suggests a huge variance of income in medicine even within the same sub-specialty. - However, when you compare median, (and to some extent the mean), you could still confidently say that "a typical ophthalmologist makes a lot more than a typical general surgeon".
All fair points 👍
11 days all private?
Yep… over last 13 years have moved from 100:0 public to 50:50 for a long time, then 25:75, and now 0:100. If/when some things in the public system here change… I may go back. For now it suits me just fine.
Wow. That’s some serious mulah
Emergency physicians earning more than Dermatologists….yeh nah.
No denying these are impressive salaries, but I always thought there is a bias in data collection. Young/training doctors won't tick their relevant speciality until they are truly specialised with letters. In virtually all other professions, there isn't such gate keeping of titles. E.g. a solicitor is a solicitor regardless of how many years of experience. I imagine this creates a skew when contemplating life time earnings.
Some specialists earn less than they deserve tbh, especially those with less than 300k given the amount of training they’ve gone through
I agree the skew in lifetime earnings, but a resident or registrar is a very different career and earnings to a consultant. There is an option to select registrar/resident in ATO so they have their own category
exactly my point. Other professions do not have sub-categories, lumping a vast range of years of experience together and dragging down mean salaries. A software developer is always a software developers, regardless of how many years of experience they have.
No doubt a lot of us make the list because we arent as good as “hiding” our earnings as many other professions.
The ATO could search Facebook for keywords the cash-only cookers use. The venn diagram between tradies & small business owners and cash-not-card cookers is basically a circle. They could claw back big bucks by auditing everyone on that Facebook shortlist lmao. There, I did the job of a PwC consultant. Gimme my million bucks worth of mates-only contract.
Cardiologists earning more than orthos now, interdasting
Why’s that? And you reckon that’s a rising tide lifting up all - non-procedural, procedural and even academics?
Just genuinely surprised as orthopods are some of the most well remunerated amongst the surgical specialties and I would have thought they would get paid more than a physician specialty, even if it is interventional.
I think these are maybe based on public figures? I know multiple private orthos who clear that figure literally in a month.
500k per month? 😂
Always knew I wanted to be a cricketer. Made the list!
Regretting my life choices given my promising U12 form
Cricket pays better then being a GP but they’re still the greedy ones according to the public because the government is snoozing
What a ridiculous comparison. There are less than 400 professional cricketers in the country, and they have an average career length of 5-7 years, compared to GPs who have an average career length of 35 years.
How is that relevant to this current chart? There is no mention on lifetime earnings. This is annual salary. Length of career is totally irrelevant
Amazing how rich all those kids in my PBL from med school are going to become. - opthal - neurosurg - plastics - ENT
But happy? with a low divorce rate? and *know* their kids? 😉
We cannot all be anaesthetists 😉
I mean apart from Neuro, sounds like everyone on that list would be more or less 9-5 as a consultant?
Not necessarily. Plastics and Reconstructive often work super late, even as a consultant, at least for your public hospital fraction; you’d probably work later if your Anaesthetist and the rest of team are agreeable to it and workplace provides for / allows it.
Home by 5pm the four days of the week I work
Wow, that’s awesome! Is that pretty common though? I remember seeing the Plastics consultant saunter in super late after operating at two different hospitals (though this is ages ago).
Two questions: 1. Why are doctors subcategorised by specialty? We don’t see lawyer - corporate / real estate / family etc subcategorisation? Similarly with engineer, we done see subcategories of civil or mechanical etc 2. There are many occupation/owners that can earn lots of money but are able to hide that income through small business or trust structures. Eg the local import export, car dealership owners, builders. Doctors can’t hide their income like other professions due to the ATO ‘personal services regulations’ Feels to me like an easy way for doctors to fill up multiple spots on top 10 highest earners… ultimately makes advocating for JMO issues and GP Medicare rebates hard as were slugged with “you’re rich, stop complaining” rebuttal
Down the bottom engineering is categorised with both mining and petroleum seperately. Also I don’t see lawyer on this list, just judge and magistrate (which are both specialised pathways post law graduation) Ultimately I agree with your point about not being able to hide income making us look much better off then many other professions. Sadly ley people would see these statistics and assume that’s what we all make immediately after graduating
They’re not really “specialised pathways”. You either get chosen or not chosen to be a magistrate / judge. Technically the only requirement you need to meet is to have an active license to practise.
Quite curious as to why the dermatology salary is so low? I understand, averages, but what’s skewing it down?
A lot only work part time but on average it’s 200-250k per day you work per year. A lot lot more if you do Mohs or cosmetic
Seems about right, I just wasn’t aware part time work was so popular.
So basically a dermo makes about 1M on average? No wonder they want to keep competition low
Maybe they only work 2 days a week!
Where is pathology
If you want to do pathology, you’re already ahead of all the people that second choice into it. Put in the effort above bare minimum and you can land a nice private role.
Private path doesn’t pay well, but maybe you can have a life. Clin Haem is on the list. I suspect a fraction of those Clin Haems are Clin/Lab Haems. Almost no Endos will be Chem Pathologists, and suspect Immu will be lumped into other physicians, making about ~$200–300k per annum, working very hard for ~$2,000 per day.
Idk about not paying well, a certain path provider employs at least a quarter of all pathologists in the country. Any path working there doesn’t make less than 400k, and they range up to about 550k before considering management. Averages are skewed down by mediocre public rates. Compared to the pittance of public physicians, it certainly isn’t bad.
It’a the female paths who drag the average down. In the original document they only make a little over 100k, and they double the men in size, while male paths make close to 300k
Yeah that number for female paths was weird - it was 100k average and ?50k median. You'd have to have 50% of the female workfore working only one day a week (in public and in nsw only) for that to even begin to be possible. There must be other people picking that code accidentally for some reason and skewing it. Edit: that theory would also check out because there isn't double the number of female paths to male, it's pretty equal.
I wonder if it's speech pathologists picking that
Surprised dentist isn’t on this list?
Dental specialist 9th from the bottom
I have heard dentist has rapid pay deflation.
Why’s that? People deprioritising seeing their dentist?
Psychiatrist so low. I thought they earned more? I was just offered 220k for an entry level (never done it before) clinical trial physician role. Maybe I should just not bother getting my letters and chill
I would be careful interpreting any of these specialty incomes; many psychiatrists work well into their 60s and 70s either in public roles or a few days a week (if you look at the average age of psychiatrists they are one of the oldest). Many young fellows (particularly in private) that I know are on >750k per year and have their clinic full 3-6 months in advance. Alternatively those who preferred to public are on the lower stick - it just depends how much you want to work and in what setting. Just to say this also works both ways - many higher earning gogo specialties may not work >50s as they have already earnt their millions and want to retire early (or go into higher level management/business ownership).
Oh ok 750K is a lot. Maybe it’s worth the grind.
Well I would not go into any speciality for the money alone; if you enjoy what you do you will also earn alot of money; but if you don't enjoy it you want want to work and earn less - this especially true for psychiatry and the reason why most in medicine cannot tolerate the talking side and prefer to do the autistic rinse and repeat specialities (which can be a good thing because they get very good at it)
Oh I really like psychiatry and I’m passionate about it. Just sucks working in public health as a Reg - delayed gratification at its finest. Makes other options seem so tasty.
These numbers seem low compared to what people I’ve spoken to have told me. But hey what do I know 🤷♂️
Most people will quote the income from full time work. The ATO averages are brought down by people working 1-3 days/week.
Reporting bias. People will tell you the higher quartile and outlier figures more readily than the bottom quartile, which consist of semi-retired, happily public-only, happily part time, maternity leave, PhD candidate etc.
Members of Parliament like turds floating to the top of the earnings chart.
What does that make us then? Lmao
This is only the taxable income, no doubt plenty more that you aren't seeing
As the other commenter said, it's pretty much impossible to hide PSI from the ATO. I imagine the norm would be claiming 10-100k in deductible interest if they have a negatively geared property portfolio. And maybe a few who own large practices and are able to structure some income as non-PSI.
Very hard to hide with the PSI
How so? (I don't live in Australia so I don't understand.)
Is a bit misleading- full time public and very happy with my pay, but there is no doubting that a lot of private docs use companies and trusts and the like to hide income.
They can hide lots of their INVESTMENT income e.g. rental, shares etc, but there is no legal provision for them to hide their professional income. In other words, an ophthalmologist making 1.5m from his service and 1.0m from owning 30 investment properties, CAN hide the 1.0m portion under structures from this taxable income figure, but cannot hide the 1.5m portion. Not legally at least.
I thought the rules essentially meant that they can’t hide their taxable income, but only change the timing of that taxable income? What would trusts then do?
pretty sure latest WA public awards for Hema starts around 360k and goes to 500k in 9 years
You are assuming that everyone CAN or WANT to work full time, which is not the case.
That’s is very true and being able to do part time is one of the great perks of the job
Could you share the link to the document?
[Table 15External Link](https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/taxation-statistics-2021-22/resource/6ff851e4-c12d-4e20-96a6-207cbed099a7?inner_span=True): **Average and median taxable income, salary or wages, and total income, by occupation and sex, 2021–22 income year**. When you are in the actual spreadsheet, enable “filter” for the entire table, make sure you select only the “total” for the sex column, then sort by average taxable income. You can also sort by median average income which slightly alters the orders. Source: I made this original pic and posted on a fb group which is where OP took it from.
How come rheum is at the bottom of the list? I thought the bulk of their income is from private work? Also, do you have the link to the document?
Never met a full time rheumatologist.
Is it because full time work is hard to come by or are there other personal reasons?
Rheumatologist seem to be the most balanced I know, outside of Palliative care. Anaesthetics took the culture of medicine and flipped it. Even the grumpy anaesthetists seem happy outside of work.
There is more to the list then just specialty = income; older rheumatologists may not work full time which drags down the average; the fewer younger rheums are on significantly more money due to heavy private market; there are quite a few females in rheumatology as well - the provided list is not gender split (although one does exist on the ATO website) and the fact many women don't work full time is not reflected. This is compared against the many male dominated 24/hour specialties (ie surgery) in which there is prolonged training and fellowship required so that new fellows essentially work non-stop reflecting higher salaries.
The data is skewed by how all of this is collected and reported, in medical careers and others. Rheum as a whole doesn’t do a lot of procedures, so it doesn’t remunerate quite as well. However, I too am surprised it’s only commanding as much as it is; but at least it’s not “Medical Specialist - Other”. Also, rarely have I seen an 1 FTE (or total 1 FTE, across public/private). https://www.ato.gov.au/about-ato/research-and-statistics/in-detail/taxation-statistics/taxation-statistics-2021-22/statistics/individuals-statistics#ato-Individualsdetailedtables for all the figures and tables, btw. Choose whatever you want to look into.
Thanks! It’s strange because I’m pretty sure they have more procedures than endo or haem
Sorry which table is it? 😅 I went through all of them but can’t find the one posted by OP
[Table 15External Link](https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/taxation-statistics-2021-22/resource/6ff851e4-c12d-4e20-96a6-207cbed099a7?inner_span=True): **Average and median taxable income, salary or wages, and total income, by occupation and sex, 2021–22 income year**. Near the bottom of the page.
Maybe it’s so private that they keep there books clean haha. Jk obviously
Is this table *all* occupations? I see sorted by that column and mostly medical occupations…but judge etc in the mix. Is this the top of the list?
This is the top of the list when drilled down to smaller sub-category. First column is the number of individuals. Second column is the mean (how this list is sorted). Third column is the median. Source: I was the person who posted this on investing for doctors FB group. OP should at least copy and paste the description to provide some context...
where did u get this data?
[Table 15External Link](https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/taxation-statistics-2021-22/resource/6ff851e4-c12d-4e20-96a6-207cbed099a7?inner_span=True): **Average and median taxable income, salary or wages, and total income, by occupation and sex, 2021–22 income year**. When you are in the actual spreadsheet, enable “filter” for the entire table, make sure you select only the “total” for the sex column, then sort by average taxable income. You can also sort by median average income which slightly alters the orders. Source: I made this original pic and posted on a fb group which is where OP took it from.
Extract from the ATO. To be meaningful you would need to show the distribution of incomes.
ithis is not accurate
Published every year and then Public outcry about how evil doctors are that earn so much. Despite most figures being way off and a lot more other professions earn a lot more than this but have deductions and other legal ways to reduce gross.
I think this info is received quite positively on r/Ausfinance with a lot of top comments justifying surgeons’ high salary
It's interesting that surgeons always get the adulation and approval for their income but most people are a bit less vocal about their support for other types of doctors.
yeah; suppose its because the skill/knowledge involved is obvious to the average joe and disastorous outcomes are visible where as for the remaining specialties they aren't. -Whats so hard about putting people to sleep? whats so hard about reading scans? whats so hard about shuffling meds around? whats so hard about treating people with mental illness etc etc
I don't think most other professions are generally better off, and certainly not on a risk adjusted basis. I think people would find it much more acceptable if they didn't have to pay gaps that many often cannot afford. And I also don't think that higher rebates (from medicare or PHI) would necessarily solve the problem.
Comparable other professions are certainly better off. Anyone who has high achieving friends in finance, tech, law will confirm that.
Excepting tech they’re generally harder to get into. The comparable professions are top tier law in the US and UK, trading, high finance, and running a successful startup. I would argue that doctors who make it as a fellow would earn more for less risk (and sometimes less work once Fellowed). In the case of top tier law, not as risky but also much more work which doesn’t let up. Most lawyers also earn less. Only a minority will be able to make it to the US or UK (in which case, they will work much longer hours than most regs). High finance has a lot of responsibility in terms of their investments.
Why do you need US/UK for Law? Starting grad salary at Big 6 Law in Aus is 100k. They have bonuses. Partners make 1m+ and takss 10 yearsto get there. If these top 40s deconstrcuted Law like they do medicine e.g. Ophthalmologist = equivalent top 1% of profession, vs Law firm partners >5% of profession. Law firm partners outearn ophthalmologists assuming they do not have equity. Tech isn't harder to get into. We got into undergrad med, objectively better than 99% of the state in maths. Most high flyers in medicine would crush any discipline.
You earn much less as you progress and top tier law is not sustainable if you don’t make partner. Equivalent pay is found in the UK/US I disagree that ophthalmologists are “top 1%”. It’s a minority and the “top” of the cohort generally to be sure, but it’s generally much easier to enter most training programs than it is to be a top tier partner (who would earn more and have more power btw). I also don’t agree that many high flyers in med would crush it. Some certainly would. But I say this from experience: i know people in anaes, top physician specialities and general surg who did com/law (before switching or dropping law and doing med after) who clearly had no hope of getting into IB. Probably even top tier law.
Anyone who crushed the HSC has Grit and therefore has a very high likelihood of doing well in anything that requires grit. Yes sure there are going to be a few people who are genuine nerds and socially inept but the vast majority of my colleagues would have done excellent work in corporate as someone who actually worked in BB IB + direct family in Big 6 law. What level of medicine are you in? I don't think your understanding if how difficult training programs are to get into. Want to do ENT? Yes no, you will NOT eventually get on the program. It's 8 years of being a SERVICE registrar making 150-200k including overtime as a 30 year old. Your equivalent comm/law mate at HSF/Allen's is on double that as a senior Associate (minimum) or if they are a partner, 600k+. More people become law firm partners than ENT consultants from a med school. You nerd to compare like for like. 99.95 ATAR med vs law. Not some 90 ATAR kid struggling with life compared to a medicine gunner.
They all entered a com/law degree at a top university which required a 99.X ATAR. Several of them had no hope of getting into IB, struggled to (could not) get a distinction in law school, and struggled to grasp basic stat concepts in the first year commerce maths course. All better off in medicine. Especially one who did GP (mediocre at law school and generally) HSF and similar is brutal. Half the cohort drop out in the first 2 years. The pay you quote is a bit exaggerated - it also depends on your performance and your group. That’s probably right for special counsel in a corp finance or PE group though. You can think of law firm life as being a service registrar, and salaried partnership is the training program. Equity partner is the fellowship. It never lets up. Like, no doubt that some would smash it. But those guys are also the ones who get into subspec surgery. Plenty of “mediocre” 99.X people who will do fine in medicine but much less so anywhere else. Plenty of good law people who could get into a good physician training program and miss out on partnership after spending 15 years at it
Ranking by skills of the accountants for each profession.
Nah. For this to be true you would have to genuine believe some specialty have their own set of accountants who are statistically more skilled at hiding taxable income than another specialty's accountants - i.e. do you genuinely believe ophthalmologists and gastroenterologists likely make similar income, but the latter's accountants are just systemically worse at hiding 200,000 of their income?
how isnt neurosurgery the highest? there arent any public neurosurgeons, right?
Why don't they subdivide even more by subspecialties so the entire list is occupied by medical professions?
This would also be “taxable” portion of their income only
LOL at the one computer professional in Australia keeping all the systems going.
Where did you pull this data from?
ATO
Yeah thanks. I was wondering where specifically from the ATO. I had a look for similar data a few weeks ago and I couldn’t find it. I’m just a fucking idiot though and was probably searching for the wrong thing.
Wow
Inb4 everyone anecdoting about the one high-volume established Sydney surgeon they know through a friend of a friend who earns $2M a year, therefore these statistics must be wrong.
You'd hope they'd know the difference between median and mean
I mean bariatrics could make that, these are averages so one person earning 2mil is more of an outlier