The heart doctor. Six years of residency after medical school, among the longest paths in medicine.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $311,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $126,000 at the lower end to about $607,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
12 to 14 years after high school, on the usual route.
$75,000 to $169,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a licence or registration before you can work.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$311,000
Lower end
$126,000
Upper end
$607,000
Job Bank does not give cardiologists a figure of their own. It pools them with all medical specialists: a median of about $311,000 a year (low $126,000, high $607,000) for 2023 to 2024. Most doctors in Canada bill the provincial health plan, and published billing figures are gross payments before office and practice costs, not take-home pay. It varies by province and by how you bill.
About $706,000
Median gross clinical payment, cardiology doctors, 2024 to 2025
CIHI (Canadian Institute for Health Information) counts 1,855 doctors in this group. The middle 60% were paid $348,000 to $1,275,000. This is billing before office, staff and other practice costs, not take-home pay. Read from CIHI's data tables, downloaded in a browser with Claude in Chrome on 6 November 2026, because cihi.ca refuses our checker.
$73,000 to $104,000
A year in Ontario from July 1, 2025, in postgraduate years 1 to 6 (PGY1 to PGY6): 3 years of internal medicine, then 3 of cardiology
Set by the 2023 to 2026 agreement between PARO (Professional Association of Residents of Ontario) and Ontario's teaching hospitals. Other provinces have their own agreements and pay scales.
About $343,500 a year
Job Bank's median for all medical specialists in Manitoba, with Quebec almost the same
Ontario's median is about $295,800 and Nova Scotia's the lowest, about $207,000. These pool every medical specialty and are gross billings, before office and practice costs.
Roughly, all in
$75,000 to $169,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is three undergraduate years at cheaper provincial tuition, a three year medical degree, one sitting of the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test), and the exam fees. The high end is four undergraduate years and four medical school years at the top of the range, plus two specialty exams, one in internal medicine and one in cardiology, at several thousand dollars each. The six residency years after medical school are paid, so they add no tuition and let many people pay debt down before practice. Typical debt at graduation is $80,000 to $150,000.
Typical debt at the end of medical school is $80,000 to $150,000. Six paid residency years mean you can pay a lot of it down before practice.
Pension only if salaried
Most are self-employed. Academic cardiologists on hospital contracts sometimes get a pension. Ontario residents are in HOOPP (the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan) during training.
Union contract during residency
Provincial residents' associations negotiate pay, call limits and leave.
Malpractice coverage
Through the CMPA (Canadian Medical Protective Association), mostly reimbursed by the province.
Professional corporation
Most provinces let doctors incorporate, which lowers taxes on money left in the business.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
You become an internal medicine doctor first, then a heart specialist.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Top marks in biology, chemistry, math and English. You need a very high average for a science undergrad.
Bachelor's degree
3 to 4 years
Any major works. Keep a GPA (grade point average) above 3.8, volunteer, do research. Write the MCAT (medical school admission test).
Medical school, the MD (doctor of medicine)
3 to 4 years
Most applicants are turned down. Classes, then clinical rotations.
Internal medicine residency
3 years
Matched through CaRMS (the residency matching service). Hospital wards, the ICU (intensive care unit) and clinics. In year 3 you apply to the subspecialty match.
Cardiology residency, then certification
3 years
Heart clinics, the catheterization lab, echo and rhythm labs. Pass the Royal College exams to become FRCPC (Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada) and register with your provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Biology and chemistry
Required for nearly every pre-med path.
Physics
The heart is a pump and the vessels are pipes. Pressure and flow matter. Also on the MCAT (medical school admission test).
Calculus and functions
English
You will explain risk to frightened people every day.
You need a licence from your provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons to practise, and Royal College certification in both internal medicine and cardiology. Both are national credentials, so moving provinces is mostly paperwork. Quebec requires working French. Cardiologists do not do open-heart surgery; that is a cardiac surgeon, a different path.
In Quebec you apply to medical school straight from CEGEP (public college), with no bachelor's degree first.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
With Secondary V math (Technical and Scientific, or Science option), chemistry and physics. These are the entry courses for the CEGEP (public college) science program.
Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
2 years
A 2 year CEGEP (public college) program (200.B1), offered in English at Dawson and the other English colleges. Take the biology and chemistry courses medical schools ask for.
Medical school, straight from CEGEP
4 to 5 years
No bachelor's degree needed. McGill and Montréal start with a 1 year preparatory year, Laval and Sherbrooke do not. You need a top R-score (the CEGEP ranking score), the Casper test and interviews.
Internal medicine, then cardiology
6 years
Matched through CaRMS (the residency matching service). 3 years of internal medicine, then 3 of adult cardiology. At Montréal the cardiology years run in French.
Royal College exam and CMQ (Collège des médecins du Québec) permit
End of residency
Pass the Royal College exam. The CMQ, the Quebec college of physicians, then issues your permit and specialist certificate once you show French. A Quebec high school diploma counts.
Get a hospital position
Before you start
Every specialist working in a Quebec hospital must hold a spot in its PEM (plan d'effectifs médicaux, the medical staffing plan). The health ministry approves how many each hospital gets.
Montréal and Laval set a minimum R-score (the CEGEP ranking score) of 33 for CEGEP applicants in 2026. McGill's Med-P year is only for recent CEGEP graduates.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Most cardiologists add 1 to 2 more years after the 6-year residency.
Interventional cardiology
Open blocked arteries with stents through the wrist. Heart attack call at 3 a.m.
Electrophysiology
Heart rhythm problems. Ablations, pacemakers and defibrillators.
Advanced heart failure and transplant
The sickest hearts, mechanical pumps, transplant lists.
Echocardiography or cardiac imaging
Ultrasound, CT (computed tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of the heart. Fewer nights.
Research experience
Cardiology is research-heavy and programs notice publications.
Stamina
Fourteen years of training is a marathon. Athletes tend to cope well.
French
Opens Ottawa, New Brunswick and Quebec programs.
Comfort with data
Reading heart tracings is pattern recognition at speed.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Morning: round on heart patients in hospital, then a clinic of 15 to 25 people with chest pain, heart failure or rhythm problems. Afternoon: read a stack of echocardiograms and ECGs (electrocardiograms), or spend it in the catheterization lab threading wires into hearts. On call, a heart attack can page you any hour and you have 90 minutes to open the artery.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
In 1950, John Hopps, an engineer at the National Research Council, worked with Toronto heart surgeon Wilfred Bigelow to build one of the first external cardiac pacemakers. Today's implanted pacemakers descend from that idea.
Heart disease is the second leading cause of death in Canada after cancer. Deaths from heart attacks have fallen sharply since the 1980s thanks to stents, clot-busting drugs and statins.
Most Canadian cardiologists now open blocked heart arteries through a needle hole in the wrist. The patient is awake, talking, and often walks out the same day.
Six years after medical school, plus a fellowship, means many cardiologists start full practice at 33 or older. The years do not come back.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Doctors first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
Last checked November 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
Tell us about this page. A person reads every message.
No email app on this device? Use Gmail instead: report a mistake in Gmail or say what you like in Gmail.