Which Doctors Live The Longest? The Numbers Don’t Lie.

If you want to live until your eighties, don’t pick anaesthesia as your speciality. UK researchers have compiled an age-at-death table for doctors and found anaesthetists have the worst survival rates, with an average age of 73 years and 4 months.

In contrast, public health doctors are expected to live to the ripe old age of 83 years and 3 months.

General practice, considered to be a high-pressure specialty in Australia thanks to rebate freezes, funding cuts and overstretched services, surprisingly fared well on the mortality stakes.

GPs on average lived for 78 years and 11 months, just behind surgeons, and obstetricians and gynaecologists. The average age at death for all doctors was 78 years 5 months.

The data was pulled from 3068 obituaries of UK doctors published in the BMJ between 2003 and 2012. There was no data on the quality of life enjoyed by these doctors, the researchers note.

Here’s a ranked list of the average age of death by medical specialty:

8. Anaesthetist
7. Psychiatry
6. Radiology
5. Pediatrics
4. General Practitioner
3. Surgery
2. Obstetrics and Gynaecology
1. Public Health


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