According to new data from the American Medical Association, the average medical student owes $200,000 in debt.
For many of those students, it is important to keep compensation in mind when choosing a medical career path.
The average first year resident makes about $60,000, and medical students do not end up making higher salaries until finishing their education in full.
The highest paid physicians are usually specialists who perform surgical procedures, including plastic surgeons, orthopedists, cardiologists, otolaryngologists and urologists.
While primary care physicians make around $260,000 a year, specialists make $368,000.
2022 marked the first year in 11 years that every speciality listed by Medscape saw an increase in salary from the previous year.
States including Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Missouri are consistently among the top paying states for physicians, which AMA says could be because practices have to pay more to entice recruits to move to southern states.
Self-employed physicians earn about $65,000 more than employed physicians every year. Practice-owning physicians under 45 make about $23,000 more than those over 45.