Mark Ebell, MD (University of Georgia) just published an article indicating that a higher salary in a particular specialty tends to mean more U.S. med students fill residencies in that specialty at academic hospitals.

For example, family medicine had the lowest average salary last year at $186,000; it also had the lowest share of residency slots filled by U.S. students (42%). Orthopedics, on the other hand, paid $436,000, and 94 percent of residency slots were filled by U.S students.

I think it’s hard to blame U.S. med students for this trend: the Association of American Medical Colleges reports that the average graduate last year had $140,000 in student debt (up nearly 8 percent from the previous year). Yikes!

For help getting into that better-paying 🙂 and hopefully, personally-satisfying specialty get help from me at http://www.insidermedicaladmissions.com/ .