Doctors are considered to be one of the best paid professionals in the work force. Responsible for the health and wellbeing of the general population medical professionals are rewarded with generous salaries for their services. But have you ever wondered how much Australian doctors and specialists actually earn? Using data compiled by Open Universities and PayScale, Business Insider has worked out just how much Australian medical professionals earn on average and how much they earn at the senior point of their career. Payscale uses visitor salary surveys and data algorithms to provide salary information for various careers, providing individuals and companies with current career data. Business Insider took the numbers from Open Universities and Payscale and made a graph of the average yearly salary of healthcare professionals. Neurological surgeons are the highest earners, racking in as much as $591,444 a year, while nurses’ pay topped out at $55,000 per annum. Here is the graph. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development released a report, titled Health at a Glance 2013, which also shed some light on the earnings of our country’s white jacket workers. The report showed Australian specialists in private practices are some of the highest paid doctors in the developed world, earning as much as 4.3 times the average wage of all specialists from 34 different countries. A study published by The University of Melbourne, What Factors Influence the Earnings of GPs and Medical Specialists in Australia?, also found region and gender to vary a specialists pay-packet. “Compared with specialists who are based in NSW, specialists from WA and QLD earned about 7.3% and 14.6% more respectively. As in the case of GPs, the earnings of specialists in Tasmania are about 12.9% lower compared to their NSW counterparts. In terms of geographic remoteness of specialists’ work locations, specialists practicing in inner regional areas within Australia earn approximately 5.9% more than their colleagues in major cities. Earnings are also higher in residential areas where median house prices are higher.” The study also found men earned more than women as both general practitioners and specialists with males GPs earning as much as 25% more than their female counterparts. Source
