Occupation / job
Physicians, Pathologists
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
The $312,400 midpoint is $21,865 a month above the $50,020 typical American job, which puts Physicians, Pathologists near the ceiling of published federal wage data. Everything at this level is gated, and the gate is usually years long.
Nationally 11,110 people do this. That is a real occupation with a thin local presence — enough that Physicians, Pathologists is a career, not enough that you can assume a second employer down the road.
These roles suit people who want responsibility for the whole of a patient’s problem rather than a part of it, and who can carry that home without it consuming them.
How long it takes to become one of the 11,110 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.
Who should not do this
A quarter earn under $186,300, a quarter over $372,780: $15,540 a month between them at a 2.0x ratio. Planning around the midpoint of a spread this wide is planning around a number very few people in Physicians, Pathologists actually earn.
The bottom quarter of this field earns $186,300 — $89.56 an hour, $136,280 above the $50,020 national midpoint. When even the worst-paid quarter of Physicians, Pathologists is this far ahead, the barrier to entry is doing the work of keeping it there.
Avoid it if you cannot do nights, cannot carry medico-legal exposure, or need to be finished thinking about work when the shift ends.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 11,110 people employed as Physicians, Pathologists; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
At 2.0x the range from $186,300 to $372,780 is doing more explaining than the job title is. Something sorts people across that distance — sector, speciality, or who employs them — and finding out what it is matters more than the $312,400 midpoint.
In cash terms the middle half of Physicians, Pathologists runs $186,300 to $372,780 — $186,480 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $312,400.
The 75th percentile is $372,780. Reaching it from the $312,400 midpoint is $60,380 a year; reaching it from the $186,300 that the bottom quarter of Physicians, Pathologists earn is $186,480.
Getting from $186,300 to the $312,400 midpoint is $126,100; getting from there to $372,780 is only $60,380. The hard part of the range is the lower half, which is also the half a newcomer starts in.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $150.19 at the midpoint for Physicians, Pathologists, $89.56 at the 25th percentile and $179.22 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Physicians, Pathologists for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $312,400 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Physicians, Pathologists, the hourly figure is $312,400 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else