The family doctor for children, from newborn checkups to teenagers. Eleven years of training, and the lowest median pay of any doctor on this site.
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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 $210,040 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $91,470 at the lower end to about $338,500 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
11 to 12 years after high school, on the usual route.
$168,000 to $325,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a license or registration before you can work.
Limited 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
$210,040
Bottom tenth
$91,470
Top tenth
$338,500
The 2025 national median is $210,040 a year, with the bottom tenth earning $91,470 or less. That is the lowest median of any doctor on this site. The survey counts employed pediatricians, and those in private partnerships are not counted at all.
$71,052 to $76,788 a year
Duke University Hospital pay across the three residency years, 2026 to 2027
Each hospital sets its own scale. Paid hospital work, while your medical school debt accrues interest. 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.
$273,700 a year or more
25% of employed general pediatricians earn this or more, 2025
The survey does not say who they are. Pay in this specialty comes mostly from checkups, vaccines and sick visits rather than procedures, which is part of why it is lower than in other fields.
Roughly, all in
$168,000 to $325,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is community college credits, an in state public university and a public medical school, with the admission test and application fees included. The high end is four full years of public university tuition and a private medical school at around $65,000 a year, plus the certifying exam fee and the cost of keeping certification current afterwards. Residency is paid work, so the three years after medical school cost you nothing in tuition. Most graduates borrow, and the debt is a heavier load on a pediatrician's pay than on most other specialties, which is why loan forgiveness for nonprofit and underserved area work matters so much in this field.
Roughly $168,000 to $325,000 in all. Most graduates borrow, and on a pediatrician's income the debt is a heavier load than for other specialties. Two things help: Public Service Loan Forgiveness after 10 years at a nonprofit hospital or clinic, and federal loan repayment for working in an underserved area.
Loan repayment programs
Federal and state programs repay large amounts of medical debt for pediatricians working in shortage areas.
Malpractice insurance paid
Covered by the employer, and premiums are lower than in surgical specialties.
Federal and military jobs
Veterans health, the Indian Health Service and military hospitals hire pediatricians with federal pay scales and pensions.
Part-time is normal
Part-time practice is common in pediatrics, and employers are used to it.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Eleven years after high school. Shorter than most specialties, and the residency is only 3 years.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Biology, chemistry and physics, with the grades to get into a college where you can hold a high grade point average.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Any major, as long as you finish the pre-medical science courses and sit the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT).
Medical school
4 years
Two years of classroom science, two years of hospital rotations, ending in a Doctor of Medicine (MD) or a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO).
Pediatrics residency
3 years
Three years across clinic, inpatient wards, newborn nursery, intensive care and the emergency department. Paid, supervised, increasingly independent.
License and board certification
During and after residency
A state medical license to practice, then the American Board of Pediatrics certifying exam.
Biology
Growth and development is the core of this specialty. A two-year-old is not a small adult.
Chemistry
Required for every pre-medical track and heavily tested at admission.
Psychology
Behavior, development and mental health take up more of a pediatric clinic than most people expect.
Spanish
A large share of American pediatric patients live in Spanish-speaking households.
Every state licenses physicians through its own medical board, and you hold a license in each state where you practice. The exams are national: the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) sequence during medical school and residency, then certification by the American Board of Pediatrics. Certification is not a license to practice, but most hospitals and insurers require it, and it has to be maintained over a career rather than earned once.
Public medical schools
Much cheaper for residents of that state, and many favor in-state applicants heavily.
Private medical schools
No state preference and much higher tuition.
Osteopathic schools
Award a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degree and train in the same residency programs.
Residency matching
Pediatrics spots are assigned by the national computer match. You rank programs, they rank you, and the algorithm decides.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Neonatology
Three more years running newborn intensive care.
Pediatric cardiology
Three more years on children's heart disease, from fetal scans onward.
Pediatric emergency medicine
Shift work at a children's hospital emergency department, with shift-based pay.
Developmental and behavioral pediatrics
Autism, attention disorders and learning problems. Huge waiting lists and far too few specialists.
Liking children, obviously
But also liking anxious parents, because you treat both at once.
Volunteering with kids before you apply
Coaching, camp, tutoring, hospital volunteering. It reads as genuine on an application.
Advocacy work
Pediatricians are often involved in public health causes. Vaccines, gun safety, nutrition and poverty are all part of the job.
Patience with repetition
You will explain the same fever advice several thousand times in a career.
Not every pediatrician runs a clinic. Pediatric hospitalists work only with admitted children, in blocks of shifts rather than a weekday schedule, and hand over completely when the block ends. There is no inbox of messages waiting and no business to run. The trade is that you work nights and weekends in rotation, and you lose the long relationships with families that draw many people to this specialty in the first place.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Clinic from 8am, with visits every 15 to 20 minutes. Newborn weight checks, two-month vaccines, ear infections, asthma, a teenager who wants to talk without a parent in the room, and well-child visits where the real work is reassurance. Between patients you take calls from worried families, refill prescriptions, fill in school and sports forms, and chase referrals. Charting spills into the evening more often than anyone admits.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The American Academy of Pediatrics was founded in 1930 by 35 pediatricians. Today it has about 67,000 members.
Almost every drug a pediatrician prescribes is calculated from the child's weight, and the same medicine can be a tenfold different dose between a newborn and a teenager. The arithmetic has to be right every time.
Federal projections expect slower than average growth for general pediatricians from 2025 to 2035, with about 1,000 openings a year across the country.
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 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.
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