To put some context on this, we're also a city with a heavy banking presence and reasonable salary ceiling for a software engineer here is 100-110k. Our facilit

To put some context on this, we're also a city with a heavy banking presence and reasonable salary ceiling for a software engineer here is 100-110k. Our facility does not draw nationally, and even regionally would rank good but far from best. My point is more along the lines that I was surprised that these docs could draw that sort of salary in this particular market (and not that they don't deserve it). It was more or less along the lines that these are good, but perhaps not exceptional, docs in a market where wages are typically lower than the national norm. EDIT: And I'll note that I did specify specialists/surgeons for a reason. I'd expect GPs -- and most docs at my facility -- to earn significantly less than that. What I was getting at is that a specialist MD in a small market could expect to earn more than an above average developer in most markets. i.e., the doc absolutely has a harder path to their profession, but if they specialize beyond GP, they have a greater likelihood of return than your average specialist software engineer to compensate for it.