Physician Salaries in Australia

The Hays Salary Survey site publicly released 2006 salary survey results for Australia in the Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL) - here are what the figures show for various Physician Specialties for hospital Registrars / Medical officers / junior doctors :

[ Note: Previously, I made an error of assuming these salaries were true for established physicians - Thanks to the anonymous reader who pointed them out to me]


All figures are in Australian Dollars

As of today (2007): 1 US Dollar = 1.20 AUS Dollar

• Anesthesiologist: $89,000 to $110,000 a Year Or $1726 week
• Dentist: $40,000 - $100,000 Or $1199 / week
• Dermatologist: $1726 / week
• Emergency Medicine: $1726 / week
• General Medicine: $1500 / week
• Obstetrician + Gynecologist: $1726 / week
• Pediatrician: $1726 / week
• Pathologist: $1726 / week
• Podiatrist: $750 / week
• Psychiatrist: $1726 / week
• Radiologist: $1726 / week
• Specialist Medicine Physician: $1726 / week
• Surgeon: $1726 / week

Compare these with 1250/week for a Civil Engineer, 1726/Week for a Chemical Engineer, 1000/ Week for an Accountant and 1000/week for a Hospital Pharmacist.


It has been a little more tough to locate salary survey data for established generalists and specialists - but there are some 2007 salary range offers I managed to amalgamate off various job sites:


Anesthestist / Anesthesiologist : Aus$245,000 (= US $213,433.23) . In Private practice, contracted anesthesiologsits in Australia can make $300,000 to $600,000 a year as per this 2009 news article.

Opthalmologist: Aus$ 240,000 (= US $209,077.45)

General Practitioner / Family Medicine = Ranging from Aus$ 80,000 to 160,000$ a year. (Certain practices offer 60% to 70% of the practice income if that's higher !)

Internal Medicine Specialist: AUS $200,000 to $275,000 a year (= US $174,453 to $239,872.95 )

Hospital Registrar : AUS$ 70,000 to 96,000 a year (= US $ 65,428 to 83,742 ) , which pretty much corresponds to the figures on the aforementioned survey.

.....Shall post more specifics as I dig them out....


These figures are lower that their American counterparts for some specialties (certainly seems better there for an internist), but Australia has much lower living costs and lacks the troubles with managed care and insurance that American Physicians experience all the time.

Like in the United States, Australia too has a pretty big disparity on incomes between General Practitioners and the specialists - unlike the United Kingdom where General Practitioners are the richer doctors ! An extract from a 2004 Article that appeared on the Medical Journal of Australia:

"The average full-time rural doctor earned $266 000 per annum from all sources, including hospital work. Of this, 33% was consumed by staff costs and 19% by practice costs. The net taxable income was $127 680, which equates to $47.50 per hour net for a 56-hour week. Half of the GPs surveyed were practice principals and their yearly average profit was $201 000. From this, they paid for motor vehicles, medical indemnity, and continuing medical education. However, a quarter of all practice principals were financially unviable, with a net profit of less than $120 000 per year"


On the amusing side, you might already be aware that Australia faces an acute shortage of physicians and are boosting efforts to recruit International medical graduates and foreign physician practitioners to work in the Aussie land. This however has sprung up a quality issue as lots of rogue agencies have sprung up everywhere, which refer these doctor CVs to hospitals to earn upto $10,000 to $30,000 Australian Dollars for every referred physician employed - Read more about this Here. A classic example of a physician that Australia repented after employing was Dr. Jayant Patel - the infamous Dr. Death !

I shall be putting up a blog to help medicos plan for the Australian medical Council exams and about how to be a doctor in Australia. To Receive updates - Join my Australia Medical Council Examinations Group on Facebook OR Orkut


Also read:

- Private Versus Public Dental Salaries in Australia
- Engineer Salaries in Australia
- Heard about a half-million dollar offer for a Physician in Aussie-land?
- Living and Working in Australia: All U Need to Know
- Americans' Survival Guide to Australia and Australian-American Dictionary




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