Academic Surgeon Financial Compensation in the US: Trends from 2017 to 2023.

Abstract

Background: Academic surgeons play a dual role in healthcare by providing patient care and spearheading research and trainees' education, but non-surgical responsibilities are frequently uncompensated and undervalued. For faculty underrepresented in medicine, these issues may be compounded by additional expected mentorship and advocacy roles. Comprehensive analyses of academic surgeon compensation trends remain scarce; this study evaluated recent trends in academic surgeon compensation stratified by rank, sex, race/ethnicity, and subspecialty.

Study design: Total annual compensation from 2017-2023 for full-time surgery department faculty was collected from the American Association of Medical Colleges Faculty Salary Survey and analyzed according to rank, sex, and race/ethnicity identifiers and across 11 surgical subspecialties. Average salaries, wage gaps, and changes across time were assessed.

Results: The Faculty Salary Survey data for 2023 included 12,443 faculty in academic surgery departments. The average salary for surgery faculty weighed by rank had a 2.9% compounded growth rate from 2017-2023, with division chiefs having the greatest compound growth rate and associate professors having the lowest. After adjusting for rank, women consistently earned less than men. In 2023, Black/African American faculty earned less than White faculty, and Asian women faculty members experienced the largest wage gap compared to White men faculty.

Conclusions: This study summarizes trends in academic surgeon compensation. It highlights the need for further research that identifies the root causes of disparities and informs interventions that address them, promoting the recruitment and retention of a skilled, diverse academic surgeon workforce.