What doctors earn when they graduate, in one chart

The median salary for anesthesiologists who started jobs last year was $300,000 — about twice as much as the pediatrician who just started off. The new survey of doctors' median first-year pay after residency, published Wednesday by the Medical Group Management Association, shows huge variation in what doctors earn during their first year in practice. Speciality doctors' salaries vastly outpace primary care physicians, with surgeons and anesthesiologists coming out on top. Primary care doctors in the United States, do tend to earn a lot more than their counterparts abroad. One 2011 study, which looked at doctor salaries from 2008, found that the average primary care doctor in France earns about $95,000, compared to the $186,000 that physicians net in the United States.