Physicians in the United States

[8] Doctors may work independently, as part of a larger group practice, or for a hospital or healthcare organization.

[12] While an impending "doctor shortage" has been reported, from 2010 to 2018, the actively licensed U.S. physician-to-population ratio increased from 277 to 301 physicians per 100,000 people.

Additionally, the number of female physicians, and osteopathic and Caribbean graduates have increased at a greater percentage.

The term hospitalist was introduced in 1996,[16] to describe US specialists in internal medicine who work largely or exclusively in hospitals.

Each of these agencies and their associated national medical organization functions as its various specialty academies, colleges, and societies.

All boards of certification now require that medical practitioners demonstrate, by examination, continuing mastery of the core knowledge and skills for a chosen specialty.

[19][20] Medscape's 2019 Physician Compensation Report found that "males out-earned their female counterparts in both primary care and specialist positions with men earning 25% and 33% more, respectively.

[25] The AMA said that "significant sex differences in salary exist even after accounting for age, experience, specialty, faculty rank, and measures of research productivity and clinical revenue.

"[23] A 2015 study of gender pay disparities among hospitalists found that women were more likely to be working night shifts despite having lower salaries.

The majority of the monetary loss was a result of low volume of patients and lack of elective surgeries.

The next highest earning physicians were those in the South Central region, comprising Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, at $216,000.

Those physicians reporting the lowest compensation levels were located in the Northeast and Southwest, earning an across-specialty median annual income of $190,000.

[24] The survey concluded that physicians in small cities (50,000–100,000) earned slightly more than those living in community types of other sizes, ranging from metropolitan to rural, but the differences were only marginal (a few percent more or less).