Why practice pediatrics? Surely not for the cash

It's time for the closely watched Medical Economics magazine annual survey of physicians' earnings, and-in the latest findings, from 2003-you and your colleagues are once again (almost) at the bottom of the pile. Median total compensation (earnings after tax-deductible expenses or, for those in professional corporations, the sum of salary, bonuses, and retirement/profit-sharing contributions made in their behalf) among pediatricians was $140,000 last year. That is one step up from general practitioners ($120,000); less than family practitioners ($149,300), internists ($150,000) and psychiatrists ($160,000); and much less than urologists ($300,000), orthopedic surgeons ($367,600), and invasive cardiologists ($400,000).

Medians do not tell the whole story, of course: In some specialties, individual practitioners who combine long hours and extraordinary skills can pull in far more. Some 18% of invasive cardiologists, for example, reported total compensation of $600,000 or more. But pediatrics doesn't have that kind of scope. Only 11% of pediatricians earn more than $250,000; 72% cluster around the median, earning between $125,000 and $250,000. Only a very few (3%), it should also be said, are at rock bottom, earning less than $60,000.

Aside from specialty, what other variables affect income?