We are huge advocates of physicians knowing their worth and negotiating for it when assessing new career opportunities or renegotiating current positions. Salary transparency can significantly help in negotiations, which is why we offer our physician salary and compensation database as a free resource to our members. We always recommend doctors compare apples to apples when looking at compensation data, as several factors such as specialty, hours worked, and practice environment play into compensation data. Along with our how much doctors make by specialty series, we wanted to look further into how much doctors work, on average, a week. Specifically, we wanted to see how specialty and different practice environments affected averages, as medicine is often an “eat what you kill” model of compensation with RVU-based contracts. Below, we break down data from our salary database and provide aggregate stats, as well as interesting insights we saw while compiling the data.
Disclaimers/Disclosures: This information is derived from our physician salary and compensation databases, but is subject to self-reporting errors and availability of relevant data points from our online communities. This information is provided for educational purposes only, and is aimed at advocating for individual physicians. It is not intended to be used for collective bargaining; please see additional disclosures and disclaimers on the physician salary data pages. Please also do your own research before making any decisions based on the information provided. We are not formal financial, legal, or tax professionals and do not provide individualized advice. You should consult these as appropriate. We highly recommend having your physician employment agreement reviewed by a physician contract review attorney to ensure you have the most up to date and relevant information for your specific situation.
Article Navigation
How the average number of hours worked per week were determined
For our analysis below, we used the anonymous contributions to our salary and compensation negotiation database that were provided by members of our online physician community from mid-2023 through 2024. In our compensation survey for the database, we asked members, on average, the number of hours they worked in a week, not including charting from home, which is reported separately. The averages below thus do not include time spent charting outside of clinical hours.
When physicians contribute to our database, they can denote what their job is considered in terms of a full time equivalent (FTE). Below, we break down our data and look specifically at
average work weeks for full-time (1 FTE) physicians unless otherwise specified. In these instances, we filtered the 6,000+ data points in our database for physicians who reported an equivalent of 1 FTE or higher.
Our data on hours worked per week are given in ranges such as 36-40 hours a week or 41-45 hours a week. Because doctors tend to underestimate their time and the intangibles of their job such as call, and because charting from home wasn’t included, we used the top of each range to help determine an average number of hours a week. For example, if the physician reported working 36-40 hours per week, we used 40 hours to help determine an average. For our top range of 81+ hours a week, we used 81 in the calculations below.
There is always room for reporting errors in self-reported data. For example, hospitalists and emergency medicine physicians who work 7-on-7-off schedules may have reported their average hours on the weeks they worked instead of averaging them out over a two week span to include their off weeks. Physicians may also not have reported all their on call time in this weekly average.
Learn more about the average number of days a year doctors are on call by specialty.
What is the average number of hours worked per week by specialty for doctors working full time?
Several physicians in our community work part-time. To try to best compare apples to apples, we wanted to get a sense of the average number of hours worked a week for doctors practicing clinically full time.
We started by looking at average hours worked a week by specialty for 1 FTE physicians:
Allergy and Immunology: 42 hours a week
Anesthesiology: 50 hours a week
Cardiology: 53 hours a week
Dermatology: 41 hours a week
Emergency Medicine: 41 hours a week
Endocrinology: 43 hours a week
Family Medicine: 45 hours a week
Gastroenterology: 48 hours a week
Geriatrics: 45 hours a week
Hematology/Oncology: 49 hours a week
Hospice & Palliative Care: 45 hours a week
Hospital Medicine: 54 hours a week
Infectious Disease: 50 hours a week
Internal Medicine: 44 hours a week
Nephrology: 48 hours a week
Neurology: 51 hours a week
OB/GYN: 53 hours a week
Ophthalmology: 45 hours a week
Orthopedics: 51 hours a week
Otolaryngology (ENT): 48 hours a week
Pathology: 49 hours a week
Pediatrics: 43 hours a week
PM&R: 47 hours a week
Psychiatry: 44 hours a week
Pulmonology: 52 hours a week
Radiation Oncology: 49 hours a week
Radiology: 49 hours a week
Rheumatology: 44 hours a week
Surgery, General: 56 hours a week
Surgery, Plastic and Reconstructive: 47 hours a week
Surgery, Trauma: 58 hours a week
Surgery, Vascular: 59 hours a week
Urology: 52 hours a week
Our surgeons averaged the longest work weeks of the specialties we have enough data points to report, with vascular surgeons reporting the highest average hours in a week. Our dermatologists reported the lowest average hours worked a week (but still more than a 40 hour work week!), which isn’t completely surprising as we used a lower average hours per week to classify a FTE in our article on how much dermatologists make than we did for other specialties. Note, however, that they tend to see amongst the most patients per hour when compared to other specialties in our article on how many patients per hour physicians see by specialty.
If you’re interested in seeing how physician salaries differ by specialty for full-time physicians, explore our how much doctors make series.
If you would like to see your specialty featured here in the future, please consider contributing your anonymous physician salary and compensation data to help us with future updates to this page.
What is the average number of hours worked per week by specialty including full time and part time doctors?
Since many of our physician members work part-time in their clinical roles, we also looked at the average number of hours worked per week by specialty overall, including physicians who reported working less than 1 FTE. Since responses in our compensation survey regarding hours worked aren’t required, the below averages also include all physicians who didn’t specify their FTE.
Allergy and Immunology: 39 hours a week
Anesthesiology: 48 hours a week
Cardiology: 53 hours a week
Critical Care Medicine: 52 hours a week
Dermatology: 38 hours a week
Emergency Medicine: 36 hours a week
Endocrinology: 40 hours a week
Family Medicine: 41 hours a week
Gastroenterology: 46 hours a week
Geriatrics: 41 hours a week
Hematology/Oncology: 47 hours a week
Hospice/Palliative Care: 44 hours a week
Hospital Medicine: 52 hours a week
Infectious Disease: 47 hours a week
Internal Medicine: 42 hours a week
Nephrology: 46 hours a week
Neurology: 49 hours a week
OB/GYN: 51 hours a week
Ophthalmology: 42 hours a week
Orthopedics: 48 hours a week
Otolaryngology (ENT): 46 hours a week
Pathology: 49 hours a week
Pediatrics: 39 hours a week
PM&R: 45 hours a week
Psychiatry: 40 hours a week
Pulmonology: 51 hours a week
Radiation Oncology: 49 hours a week
Radiology: 45 hours a week
Rheumatology: 39 hours a week
Surgery, Breast: 43 hours a week
Surgery, General: 56 hours a week
Surgery, Neurological: 62 hours a week
Surgery, Plastic and Reconstructive: 47 hours a week
Surgery, Trauma: 58 hours a week
Surgery, Vascular: 59 hours a week
Urology: 51 hours a week
Looking at all hours per week reported by physicians, we noted again that surgeons reported the longest average work weeks, with neurosurgeons clocked in with the highest average. Overall, emergency medicine reported the lowest average hours a week, though we’d like to point out that these positions are often 7-on-7-off scheduled shifts, and this is typically where we see the most reporting errors with the way we collect data. Additionally, as emergency medicine may allow for more part time options secondary to a shift based schedule, we may have a larger percentage of emergency medicine physicians working part time.
What is the average number of hours worked per week by practice environment?
Along with looking at how average hours worked per week varied by specialty, we looked at how hours varied depending on the practice environment, as we’ve seen in our how much doctors make series that the practice environment can have a large influence in trends for physician employment, particularly pay. Below, we break down the average hours worked per week for full-time (1 FTE) physicians by practice environment for each specialty.
If you don’t see your specialty in a specific practice environment below, it’s because we don’t have enough data to pull together a reliable average to report. To see your specialty added in future updates, please consider contributing your anonymous physician salary and compensation data if you haven’t already this year.
What is the average number of hours worked per week by specialty for physicians working for corporate groups?
When members contribute to our physician salary and negotiation database, they can denote if they work for a private equity backed corporate group practice or a non-PE backed group. As some specialties are significantly smaller than others, for the statistics below, we grouped all doctors who work for corporate groups together to determine the average hours worked a week by specialty.
Anesthesiology: 49 hours a week
Emergency Medicine: 40 hours a week
Family Medicine: 43 hours a week
Hospital Medicine: 56 hours a week
Internal Medicine: 46 hours a week
OB/GYN: 51 hours a week
Pediatrics: 41 hours a week
Psychiatry: 42 hours a week
Generally, doctors in the specialties above working full time for corporate groups reported working less than the average across all practice environments. The exception is hospitalists, who reported working slightly more (56 versus 54 hours a week).
What is the average number of hours worked per week by specialty for physicians working for FQHCs and other non-profit groups?
Family Medicine: 44 hours a week
Internal Medicine: 41 hours a week
OB/GYN: 48 hours a week
Pediatrics: 43 hours a week
Psychiatry: 43 hours a week
While our pediatricians working for non-profits full time work on average the same as the overall average across all practice environments, our other specialties reported working less. The largest difference was for OB/GYNs (48 versus 53 hours a week), followed by internal medicine doctors (41 versus 44 hours a week).
We’ve looked into how salaries range based on the practice environment for these specialties separately. Explore:
What is the average number of hours worked per week by specialty for physicians working at government facilities?
Anesthesiology: 42 hours a week
Family Medicine: 45 hours a week
Hospital Medicine: 51 hours a week
Internal Medicine: 44 hours a week
Psychiatry: 46 hours a week
Family medicine and internal medicine doctors reported working the same average hours a week at government facilities as the overall overage, while psychiatrists reported working more (46 versus 44 hours a week). Anesthesiologists working for government facilities reported working much less on average (42 versus 50 hours a week) than across all practice environments.
Explore how salaries for doctors working for government facilities compare versus the average:
What is the average number of hours worked per week by specialty for physicians working for group private practices?
Similar to physicians working for corporate groups, doctors working for group private practices can specify if they work for private equity backed or non-PE backed practices. For the analysis below, we grouped these together to provide more insights for smaller specialties.
Anesthesiology: 53 hours a week
Cardiology: 52 hours a week
Dermatology: 40 hours a week
Emergency Medicine: 38 hours a week
Family Medicine: 43 hours a week
Gastroenterology: 48 hours a week
Hematology/Oncology: 50 hours a week
Hospital Medicine: 52 hours a week
Internal Medicine: 44 hours a week
Nephrology: 52 hours a week
Neurology: 51 hours a week
OB/GYN: 53 hours a week
Ophthalmology: 46 hours a week
Orthopedics: 48 hours a week
Pathology: 47 hours a week
Pediatrics: 41 hours a week
Psychiatry: 42 hours a week
Radiology: 50 hours a week
Surgery, General: 65 hours a week
Urology: 49 hours a week
While we’ve seen that physicians in private practice often report higher than average salaries in our how much doctors make series, this doesn’t mean they necessarily always work more. Doctors with group private practices reported lower than average hours worked per week for the following specialties: cardiology; dermatology; emergency medicine; family medicine; hospital medicine; orthopedics; pathology; pediatrics; and psychiatry.
Many of our physicians also practice in solo private practices, but we don’t currently have enough data points by specialty to come up with reliable averages. If you would like to see this section added, please consider contributing your anonymous physician salary and compensation data to help support future updates.
Explore related PSG resources:
What is the average number of hours worked per week by specialty for physicians working for academic hospitals?
Many of our physicians report working for academic hospitals, and we often see large differences when comparing work environments and compensation for academic hospitals versus nonacademic hospitals, so we assessed these separately. For full-time (1 FTE) doctors working at academic hospitals, we saw:
Allergy and Immunology: 44 hours a week
Anesthesiology: 51 hours a week
Cardiology: 51 hours a week
Emergency Medicine: 43 hours a week
Family Medicine: 47 hours a week
Gastroenterology: 49 hours a week
Hematology/Oncology: 49 hours a week
Hospice/Palliative Care: 50 hours a week
Hospital Medicine: 51 hours a week
Infectious Disease: 50 hours a week
Internal Medicine: 46 hours a week
Nephrology: 46 hours a week
Neurology: 51 hours a week
OB/GYN: 52 hours a week
Ophthalmology: 43 hours a week
Otolaryngology (ENT): 52 hours a week
Pathology: 51 hours a week
Pediatrics: 45 hours a week
PM&R: 50 hours a week
Psychiatry: 43 hours a week
Pulmonology: 51 hours a week
Radiology: 49 hours a week
Surgery, General: 54 hours a week
Urology: 55 hours a week
Physicians who work full-time at academic hospitals typically reported working the average number of hours a week or more, with the exception of the following specialties: cardiology; hospital medicine; nephrology; ophthalmology; psychiatry; pulmonology; and general surgery.
Though they tend to work the average or more, we usually see lower than average salaries for physicians who work for academic hospitals than in other practice environments. We always like to remind doctors, however, that salaries are only one part of the overall compensation package. Academic hospitals often offer other incentives in their compensation packages, and can qualify for public student loan forgiveness programs (PSLF) as well.
What is the average number of hours worked per week by specialty for physicians working for nonacademic hospitals?
We also looked at the average number of hours worked for doctors practicing at nonacademic hospitals:
Anesthesiology: 48 hours a week
Cardiology: 54 hours a week
Emergency Medicine: 40 hours a week
Endocrinology: 43 hours a week
Family Medicine: 43 hours a week
Gastroenterology: 48 hours a week
Hematology/Oncology: 48 hours a week
Hospice/Palliative Care: 42 hours a week
Hospital Medicine: 54 hours a week
Infectious Disease: 49 hours a week
Internal Medicine: 43 hours a week
Neurology: 52 hours a week
OB/GYN: 54 hours a week
Orthopedics: 52 hours a week
Otolaryngology (ENT): 46 hours a week
Pathology: 50 hours a week
Pediatrics: 44 hours a week
PM&R: 45 hours a week
Psychiatry: 44 hours a week
Pulmonology: 51 hours a week
Radiation Oncology: 51 hours a week
Radiology: 47 hours a week
Rheumatology: 44 hours a week
Surgery, General: 55 hours a week
Surgery, Trauma: 53 hours a week
Surgery, Vascular: 65 hours a week
For the majority of our specialties, doctors reported working lower than average hours per week at nonacademic hospitals than across all practice environments. A few, such as cardiology, neurology, and radiation oncology, reported just slightly higher (~1 hour per week) more.
The notable exception was for vascular surgeons, who reported 65 hours a week versus the overall average of 59 hours a week. It’s important to note that this is a smaller dataset, so outliers can more heavily influence averages.
Conclusion
While specialty plays a large role in how much doctors work a week on average, it isn’t the only factor that influences hours. The practice environment also matters as we saw above, as can the personal and career goals of each individual doctor. Some physicians may prefer to cut back on clinical time and spend more time at home with their families. Others may be working on building up their roster for a new practice, or putting in extra hours while working toward a partnership track. There is no one optimal schedule in medicine, and we hope physicians will take the time to advocate for themselves and find a job that creates the life in medicine best suited for them.
When negotiating your employment agreement for a new job opportunity, make sure to discuss the expected schedule and required hours. Get in writing whatever you decide with a future employer. If you aren’t sure how to best negotiate to get the schedule and average hours a week you want, a contact review attorney can often help.
If you’re looking for a new career opportunity for a better balance, we have a job board to help!
Additional salary and career resources for doctors
If you need guidance on negotiating your next contract to optimize your work week, check out:
Explore our related articles and resources on doctor compensation and salaries:
If you haven’t recently, please take a few minutes to contribute! The data provided is used only for the purpose of our database to help physicians like yourself negotiate better compensation by helping provide salary transparency with relevant data. The data is completely anonymous and is only available to members of our Physician Side Gigs Facebook group. Contribution links can be found on our compensation data for physicians page.