Cardiac Surgeon

Operate on hearts. The longest training on this site, and near the top of the pay scale.

Typical pay: $414,010a year
Time to qualify: 14 to 16 yearsafter high school
Demand: Moderate
License needed: Yesregulated job

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Quick answers

How much does a cardiac surgeon make in the United States?

The median pay is about $414,010 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $80,320 at the lower end to about $655,320 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.

How long does it take to become a cardiac surgeon in the United States?

14 to 16 years after high school, on the usual route.

What does it cost to become a cardiac surgeon?

$150,000 to $315,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.

Do you need a license to work as a cardiac surgeon in the United States?

Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a license or registration before you can work.

What is the job outlook for a cardiac surgeon in the United States?

Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.

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Cardiac Surgeon salary in the United States

What you earn and what it costs to get there.

What heart surgeons make

Median for the group

$414,010

Bottom tenth

$80,320

Top tenth

$655,320

There is no separate federal wage line for cardiac surgeons. They are counted inside Surgeons, All Other, a mixed group of surgical specialties. In the 2025 federal wage survey that group's median is $414,010 a year, the bottom tenth earn $80,320 or less and the top tenth $655,320 or more. These figures describe the whole group, not this specialty alone, and they count only surgeons paid a wage, so surgeons who own part of their practice are missing.

While you are training

$78,949 a year

First-year resident pay at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, 2026 to 2027

It rises each year, to $88,367 in the fourth. Each hospital sets its own scale. You are paid for every year after medical school, but it is 6 to 8 of those years, on 60 to 80 hour weeks, while your loans sit there. Nationally, the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) survey of 345 teaching hospitals puts the average first-year stipend at $68,166 as of July 1, 2025, and about $81,807 in the fifth year. Read from the AAMC's data, downloaded in a browser with Claude in Chrome on 6 November 2026, because aamc.org refuses our checker.

Where pay is highest

$604,890 a year

The median for the wider surgeons, all other group in North Dakota, the highest of any state

Minnesota ($568,150) and Ohio ($554,220) come next. California is the lowest, at $131,990. The group mixes several surgical specialties, so treat these as a rough guide.

What it costs to get there

Bachelor's degree (4 years, in-state public): Roughly $10,000 to $12,000 a year in tuition and fees
Medical school (4 years): Roughly $30,000 to $45,000 a year in-state public, more at private schools
MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) and applications: $1,000 to $3,000 in testing and application fees
Licensing exams: Several hundred dollars for each of the three steps, plus board certification fees later

Roughly, all in

$150,000 to $315,000

Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel

The low end is two years at a community college, two years at an in state public university, and an in state public medical school, with residency and the cardiac surgery fellowship paid as jobs rather than charged as tuition. The high end is four full years of undergraduate tuition and a private medical school, plus admission testing, application and board certification fees. Most graduates borrow, and the debt is large. Neither figure counts the fourteen to sixteen years of earnings you give up.

Most graduates borrow, and the debt is large. Fee assistance for application and test fees exists for students who qualify, so look for it before you pay anything.

How heart surgeons get paid

Hospital employment
A base salary plus a bonus tied to how much you operate. The most common arrangement now.
Private group partnership
You buy into a practice and share its profits. The government wage survey does not capture this income.
Academic medicine
A university salary, with protected time for research and teaching residents.
Call pay
Extra money for being available overnight and on weekends for emergencies.

How to become a cardiac surgeon in the United States

The exact path from high school to qualified.

The path to becoming a cardiac surgeon, step by step

Fourteen to sixteen years after high school. There is no shortcut and no part-time version.

1
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Any major, but you must finish the pre-medicine science courses and keep a very high grade average. Write the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test).
2
Medical school
4 years
An MD (doctor of medicine) or DO (doctor of osteopathic medicine) degree. Two years of science, then two years of clinical rotations in hospitals.
3
Surgical training
6 to 8 years
Two routes. The integrated route is a 6-year cardiothoracic residency straight out of medical school. The traditional route is a 5-year general surgery residency followed by a 2 to 3 year cardiothoracic fellowship.
4
Board certification
After training
Pass the written and oral examinations of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. Congenital heart surgery is a further certificate on top.
5
State medical license
During and after training
Granted by the medical board of the state you practice in, after you have passed all three steps of the national licensing examination.

High school courses that help you become a cardiac surgeon

Biology and chemistry
Required for every pre-medicine track in the country.
Physics
Tested on the medical school admission exam, and blood flow is fluid dynamics.
Calculus and statistics
Most medical schools want at least one college math course, and research needs statistics.
English
Half the admission exam is reading and reasoning, and you will be explaining frightening things to families.

Time and money, at a glance

Years after high school: 14 to 16
Getting into medical school: Competitive. Many applicants are not admitted anywhere
Total cost: Commonly $150,000 to $315,000 across both degrees, tests and fees
Paid while training?: Yes, from the first day of residency

Who licenses this job

Every state licenses physicians through its own medical board, and there is no single national license. What is national is the examination: you pass the three steps of the United States Medical Licensing Examination, or its osteopathic equivalent, and your state board issues the license. Residency and fellowship programs must be accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Board certification from the American Board of Thoracic Surgery is technically separate from licensure, but no hospital will let you operate on hearts without it.

It is competitive at every single gate

Getting into medical school is hard. Matching into general surgery is harder. Matching into an integrated cardiothoracic program is one of the most competitive things in American medicine, with few positions offered nationally each year. Then there are fellowship places, then board examinations. Plenty of excellent people are stopped at one of these gates and end up in a different specialty. Go in knowing that, and pick a route you would still be glad to be on if the heart doors close.

What helps you get ahead as a cardiac surgeon

Things you don't need, but that help.

Where heart surgeons specialize

Adult cardiac surgery
Bypass grafts and valve replacement. The bulk of the work.
Congenital heart surgery
Operating on babies and children. A further certificate after cardiothoracic training.
Transplant and mechanical support
Heart transplants and implanted pumps. Small, intense, hospital-based programs.
Aortic surgery
Repairing the body's largest artery, often as an emergency.
Minimally invasive and robotic
Smaller incisions, faster recovery, a growing share of cases.

Nice-to-haves before medical school

Research experience
Surgical programs care about it. Starting in your undergraduate years is normal.
Shadowing a surgeon
Spend a day in an operating room before you plan 15 years around it.
Manual skill and stamina
Sewing, instruments, knots. Some people practice on suture kits for years.
A backup you would actually enjoy
Most pre-medicine students do not become surgeons. Build a path you would be happy with.

What being a cardiac surgeon is really like

Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.

What a cardiac surgeon does day to day

In the hospital by 6am to round on patients who were operated on yesterday, most of them in intensive care with tubes and drains. First case starts around 7:30: a bypass takes roughly 4 to 6 hours standing at the table, with the patient's heart stopped and a machine doing its work. A second case may follow. Afternoons that are not operating are clinic, reviewing scans and consenting patients for surgery. Then notes, phone calls, and overnight call every few nights.

The honest pros and cons of being a cardiac surgeon

The good

Among the highest paid work in the country
You fix things that would otherwise kill people, quickly and visibly
Total job security and demand in every state
Paid throughout the long training years

The hard parts

Fourteen to sixteen years before you are fully qualified
Large student debt is normal
Long operations, nights on call, and a heavy toll on family life
When it goes wrong, a person dies on your table

Work life

Typical hours: 60 to 70 a week, plus overnight call
Remote work: None
Physical demand: High: hours standing, extreme concentration
Unionized: No, though resident physicians at some hospitals have unionized

Similar paths

Things nobody tells you about being a cardiac surgeon

Things people don't tell you.

A machine does the heart's job during surgery

Cardiopulmonary bypass, the heart-lung machine, pumps and oxygenates blood so the heart can be stopped and opened. It is run by a clinical perfusionist, a separate career with its own training.

It is a tiny profession

The federal data counts about 27,500 people in the whole Surgeons, All Other category in 2025, with roughly 700 openings a year projected from 2025 to 2035. Cardiac surgeons are a slice of that.

You can start heart training straight out of medical school

The integrated 6-year cardiothoracic residency is a recent invention. Before those programs appeared in the 2000s, everyone had to finish a full general surgery residency first.

The board is older than most hospitals you have been in

The American Board of Thoracic Surgery was founded in 1948 as an independent nonprofit, and it still sets the standard of education, training and technical skill required to call yourself a thoracic surgeon.

How a cardiac surgeon compares

Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.

More health careers in the US

Surgeons first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.

Where these numbers come from

Last checked November 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.