Procedural specialty
Anesthesiology: Salary, Residency & Career Guide
Perioperative medicine, airway management, physiology and critical decision-making.
Typical Training
3+1 years
Clinical base year + 3 years of anesthesiology
Attending Compensation
$557,131
Average Total Compensation
Employment outlook
+4%
Projected Job Growth
Relative Competitiveness Index
62 / 100
Competitive
Start in Medical School
M1 to M4 Preparation
Practical experience, projects and rotation planning.
See the Medical School RoadmapAttending Compensation and State Wages
U.S. Attending Compensation
$557,131
Average Total Compensation
BLS State Median Wages (Separate Data Series)
Highest published state medians. Select another state above for its figure.
Resident Pay by Institution
Clinical base year + 3 years of anesthesiology.
2026–27 salaries, five published training-institution examples.
Selected institution
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
$77,049/ year
Pay varies by institution and postgraduate year.
Schedules and Work Setting
Schedule and Call
Operating-room starts can be early, and obstetric, transplant, cardiac and trauma coverage can create night call. Some groups use shifts and post-call days; partnership models may trade compensation against in-house coverage or unpredictability.
Practice Settings
Operating rooms, procedural suites, labor and delivery, critical care and pain clinics.
Procedures and Clinical Work
- Airway management and endotracheal intubation
- Regional anesthesia and nerve blocks
- Perioperative monitoring
- Procedural sedation
Fellowship Training
Fellowship Expectation Index
2 / 5
Fellowship Options
Common Fellowship Duration: 1 year(s) beyond residency. Pain medicine, cardiothoracic anesthesia and critical care typically add a year.
A core anesthesiology practice is available immediately after residency. Pain, critical care, cardiothoracic and pediatric anesthesiology fellowships refine particular practice settings and credentialing.
Direct Practice
General operating-room anesthesia, perioperative care and procedural anesthesia.
Specialized Practice
Distinct subspecialty practice or board certification can require a targeted fellowship.
Choosing a Path
Do not assume that cardiac OR, ICU, chronic-pain clinic and routine OR anesthesia are interchangeable lifestyles. Observe the settings before deciding whether further training serves your preferred work.
Potential Fellowship Pathways
- Pain medicine
- Critical care medicine
- Cardiothoracic anesthesiology
- Pediatric anesthesiology
Fellowship Careers From This Residency
Choose a subspecialty to see its training requirements, clinical work and preparation pathway.
Preparing in M1 Through M4
Observe preoperative assessment, physiologic monitoring during surgery and the PACU handoff. Anesthesiologists spend substantial time anticipating complications before a procedure begins.
Research or QI
Patient-safety work in perioperative handoffs, PONV prevention, difficult-airway simulation or PACU delays reveals a concrete understanding of anesthesia practice.
Common Mistake
Confusing exposure to airway procedures with understanding anesthesia. Preoperative evaluation, crisis resource management and difficult conversations are central.
Preparation by Year
- 1Observe an early-morning anesthesia machine check, preoperative patient assessment and PACU handoff in the same shift; note where risks were anticipated.
- 2Explore an anesthesia or perioperative safety project with an achievable deliverable, such as a standardized handoff audit or simulation-based intervention.
2027 ERAS Signals: 5 Gold, 10 Silver.
Ask a resident this: Who manages the first five minutes of an intraoperative emergency, and what opportunities do residents have to debrief after one?
MD vs DO Match Outcomes
1,387 of 1,628 matched to their preferred specialty
307 of 527 matched to their preferred specialty
MD vs DO difference: 26.9 percentage points
Applicant Considerations
The 2024 anesthesiology MD–DO gap is meaningful, even though many DO applicants successfully matched. Your differentiator is evidence of judgment in the OR and a carefully matched list of programs, with examples from observed perioperative care.
DO Application Strategy
Verify USMLE/COMLEX review at target programs, identify departments with DO residents and consider anesthesia electives that can produce an evaluated perioperative performance letter. Include both categorical and advanced structures where relevant.
Job Outlook
+4%
Projected Employment Growth
2025 to 2035, BLS occupational projection
Regional hiring depends on employers, workforce supply and patient demand.
AI and the Specialty
Potential Workflow Changes
Potential uses include monitoring decision support, perioperative documentation, risk prediction and operating room scheduling; human oversight and procedural responsibility remain essential.
Sources & Data Notes
Reviewed . National attending compensation uses Doximity's 2026 specialty survey (2025 pay) where available, then verified specialty-specific Medscape, Marit or Salary.com estimates. Doximity, Medscape and Marit report total compensation; Salary.com models base salary. Survey averages, modeled salaries and BLS wage medians measure different populations and must not be interpreted as identical metrics. BLS May 2025 state wages are shown separately and exclude self-employed physicians. The ophthalmology BLS category excludes pediatric ophthalmologists. State figures may be missing, top-coded, or suppressed. Job outlook uses BLS 2025–2035 occupational projections; it is not a local vacancy forecast. Resident stipend examples reflect published institutional scales for 2026 to 2027, by postgraduate year, not specialty. Stanford includes housing in its reported base salary; other institutions handle allowances differently.
The Relative Competitiveness Index uses a fixed score of 25 plus 1.75 times the 2024 U.S. MD preferred-specialty unmatched percentage, rounded, then applies the same 1.225 multiplier to every specialty. Neurological Surgery is 98/100; the score is not the applicant's chance of matching. It is not a 2026 estimate or DO-specific score. The MD and DO percentages compare different unadjusted applicant cohorts who ranked that specialty first. They do not account for application strategy, program selection, scores, or geography. Ophthalmology and urology have separate specialty match processes; other pathways may lack suitable NRMP cohorts.
The 1–5 Fellowship Expectation Index is an editorial assessment of customary career paths, not a measured participation rate or requirement. For residency profiles, compact training labels put specialty years before the clinical base or preliminary year; e.g. 3+1 means three specialty years and one clinical base year, even though the clinical year comes first. Fellowship-defined careers are presented in the separate fellowship explorer. Schedules, procedural scope, preparation suggestions, and potential AI effects depend on the program and practice setting; they are qualitative descriptions, not guaranteed outcomes or forecasts of physician replacement.
For Anesthesiology: Doximity 2026, Average Total Compensation, reported under “Anesthesiology.” The national estimate must not be treated as a state-specific compensation figure.
Anesthesiology: Editorial classification; exact fellowships pursued vary by training institution and practice market. Specialty-specific roadmaps describe illustrative activities, not mandatory publication, shadowing-hour, rotation, or skill requirements. Common fellowship routes: Pain medicine, cardiothoracic anesthesia and critical care typically add a year.