General Surgeon

What general surgeons make

The federal wage survey has no line for general surgeons. It files them under Surgeons, All Other, a mix 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. AMN Healthcare (a national physician staffing company) puts average general surgeon pay in 2025 at $420,000 to $480,000.

What you earn while you train

Residents are salaried hospital employees for all 5 years, so it is real money, and each hospital sets its own scale. You are also carrying medical school debt and working the longest hours of your life. The figure moves with the cost of living in the city. 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.

Once you are board certified

Rural hospitals and trauma programs add signing bonuses and loan repayment because they cannot recruit. Surgeons who are partners in a practice are largely missing from the federal survey.

What it costs to get there

File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) every year. Most medical students borrow, and the debt is large. Work for a nonprofit or government hospital afterwards and Public Service Loan Forgiveness can cancel the balance after 10 years of qualifying payments. Your residency years count toward those 10.

Benefits

• Malpractice insurance paid for you

  Employers almost always cover it, and buying it yourself is expensive.

• Public Service Loan Forgiveness

  Nonprofit and government hospitals qualify, and residency counts toward the 10 years of payments.

• Loan repayment for working rural

  Small hospitals and the National Health Service Corps pay cash toward your loans for a few years of service.

• Total job security

  Every hospital with an emergency department needs a general surgeon on call.

The path to becoming a general surgeon, step by step

The longest common route on this site. Thirteen years after high school before you operate on your own.

1. 1

   High school

   Grades 11 and 12

   Top grades in biology, chemistry, physics and math. Nothing here decides your future, but weak science makes the next step harder.

2. 2

   Bachelor's degree

   4 years

   Any major works as long as you finish the pre-medical science courses and hold a high GPA. Sit the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) in your third year.

3. 3

   Medical school

   4 years

   Two years of classroom science, then two years of hospital rotations. You graduate as an MD (Doctor of Medicine) or a DO (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine). Both can become surgeons.

4. 4

   General surgery residency

   5 years

   Matched through the NRMP (National Resident Matching Program). Five years of operating, night call and logged cases.

5. 5

   Board certification

   After residency

   Two exams from the American Board of Surgery: a written qualifying exam, then an oral certifying exam.

High school courses that help you become a general surgeon

• Biology and chemistry

  Required for nearly every pre-medical program.

• Physics

  Tested on the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test).

• Calculus or statistics

  Most medical schools want at least one math course.

• English and public speaking

  You explain frightening things to families for a living.

Time and money, at a glance

Licensed by your state, certified by a national board

Every state runs its own medical board and issues its own license, so moving states means a new application. The national exam is the USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Examination), taken in three steps, and osteopathic students may sit the COMLEX (Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination) instead. Board certification in general surgery is separate and comes from the American Board of Surgery. You get no more than seven academic years after residency ends to finish it.

Two different degrees, the same operating room

An MD (Doctor of Medicine) program and a DO (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) program both lead to surgical residencies, and since 2020 they share a single accreditation system. Osteopathic schools also teach hands-on manipulation of muscle and joint. Their graduates do match into surgery, just in smaller numbers, so the path is a little steeper.

Fellowships after residency

One or two more years that narrow what you operate on.

• Trauma and surgical critical care

  Emergency operating plus intensive care unit work. One to two years.

• Vascular surgery

  Arteries and veins. Two years.

• Surgical oncology

  Cancer operations. Two years.

• Minimally invasive and bariatric surgery

  Keyhole and weight loss procedures. One year.

• Pediatric surgery

  Two years and one of the hardest fellowships to win.

Nice-to-haves before you apply

• Research and publications

  Surgery programs weigh them heavily when they rank applicants.

• Time inside an operating room

  Shadowing tells you fast whether standing for six hours suits you.

• Stamina and steady hands

  Long cases, no chair, no phone.

• A second language

  Spanish especially. You talk to frightened people all day.

The military will pay the tuition

The armed forces run the Health Professions Scholarship Program, which covers medical school tuition and pays a monthly stipend. In exchange you serve roughly one year for each year of support, usually four. You can still complete a general surgery residency, often in a military hospital. Your pay then follows the Department of Defense basic pay table for your rank and years of service instead of civilian surgeon rates, in exchange for a start with no tuition debt.

What a general surgeon does day to day

Rounds on your own patients around 6am, first case in the operating room by 7:30. A gallbladder takes under an hour, a bowel resection several. Between cases come clinic visits, consults from the emergency department and conversations with families. On trauma call the day has no shape at all and you may be operating at 3am. Dictation and paperwork fill every gap.

The honest pros and cons of being a general surgeon

Work life

Similar paths

• Cardiac SurgeonOperate on hearts. The longest training on this site, and near the top of the pay scale.
• AnesthesiologistYou keep people alive and unaware while someone else operates. Twelve years of training, and a median of $391,490 a year.
• Emergency PhysicianYou take whatever comes through the door, in the order it arrives. Eleven years of training for a job measured in shifts.

The 80-hour week is a cap, not a goal

Residency programs accredited by the ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) may not schedule a resident for more than 80 hours a week, averaged over four weeks. The limit grew out of a patient death in a New York hospital in the 1980s, and plenty of surgeons argued against it.

An algorithm decides where you train

The NRMP (National Resident Matching Program) places graduating students into residency using a matching algorithm. The research behind it won the 2012 Nobel Prize in economic sciences. You rank programs, they rank you, the computer settles it.

The certification clock runs out

The American Board of Surgery gives you no more than seven academic years after training ends to pass both certification exams. The clock starts the day residency finishes, and one of the two exams is spoken, not written.

You are tested on cameras as well as scalpels

Before certification the American Board of Surgery expects training in flexible endoscopy, the camera-on-a-tube work used to look inside the gut. Modern general surgery is as much screens and keyhole tools as it is open cutting.