 Employment
Physicians and surgeons hold about 661,400 jobs in the United States;
approximately 12 percent were self-employed.
About 53 percent of
wage–and-salary physicians and surgeons worked in offices of physicians,
and 19 percent were employed by hospitals. Others practiced in Federal,
State, and local governments, educational services, and outpatient care
centers.
According to 2007 data from
the American Medical Association (AMA), 32 percent of physicians in
patient care were in primary care, but not in a subspecialty of primary
care.
|
Percent
distribution of active physicians in patient care by
specialty, 2007 |
|
Specialty |
Percent |
|
Internal
medicine |
20.1 |
|
Family
medicine/general practice |
12.4 |
|
Pediatrics |
9.6 |
|
Obstetrics
and gynecology |
5.6 |
|
Anesthesiology |
5.5 |
|
Psychiatry |
5.2 |
|
General
Surgery |
5.0 |
|
Emergency
Medicine |
4.1 |
|
SOURCE:
American Medical Association, 2009 Physician Characteristic
and Distribution in the US. |
A growing number of
physicians are partners or wage-and-salary employees of group practices.
Organized as clinics or as associations of physicians, medical groups
can more easily afford expensive medical equipment, can share support
staff, and benefit from other business advantages.
According to the AMA,
the New England and Middle Atlantic States have the highest ratios of
physicians to population; the South Central and Mountain States have the
lowest. Physicians tend to locate in urban areas, close to hospitals and
education centers. AMA data showed that in 2007, about 75 percent of
physicians in patient care were located in metropolitan areas while the
remaining 25 percent were located in rural areas.
Note: Some resources in this section are provided by the US Department
of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
and the American Medical Association.
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