Medicine

Types of Degrees Medicine Majors Are Getting

The following table lists how many medicine graduations there were in 2020-2021 for each degree level.

Education Level	Number of Grads
Doctor’s Degree	28,623
Graduate Certificate	6

What Medicine Majors Need to Know

People with careers related to medicine were asked what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important for their jobs. They weighted these areas on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest.

Knowledge Areas for Medicine Majors

This major prepares you for careers in which these knowledge areas are important:

• Medicine and Dentistry - Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Biology - Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.

Skills for Medicine Majors

When studying medicine, you’ll learn many skills that will help you be successful in a wide range of jobs - even those that do not require a degree in the field. The following is a list of some of the most common skills needed for careers associated with this major:

• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
• Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
• Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.

Abilities for Medicine Majors

Some of the most crucial abilities to master while a medicine student include the following:

• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).

What Can You Do With a Medicine Major?

Below is a list of occupations associated with medicine:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
Family and General Practitioners	14.3%	$201,100
Physicians and Surgeons	11.4%	$200,890

How Much Do Medicine Majors Make?

Master’s Degree Starting Salary

The median early-career salary of medicine students with a master’s degree is $76,084 a year according to 2019-2020 data from the U.S. Department of Education. During this timeframe, most salaries fell between $76,084 (25th percentile) and $76,084 (75th percentile).

Note that some of these people may have jobs that are not directly related to a medicine degree.

Salaries According to BLS

Medicine majors often go into careers where salaries can range from $203,880 to $211,780 (25th to 75th percentile). This range includes all degree levels, so the salary for a person with just a bachelor’s degree may be a little less and the one for a person with an advanced degree may be a little more.

To put that into context, according to BLS data from the first quarter of 2020, the typical high school graduate makes between $30,000 and $57,900 a year (25th through 75th percentile). The average person with a bachelor’s degree (any field) makes between $45,600 and $99,000. Advanced degree holders make the most with salaries between $55,600 and $125,400.

Amount of Education Required for Careers Related to Medicine

Some degrees associated with medicine may require an advanced degree, while others may not even require a bachelor’s in the field. Whatever the case may be, pursuing more education usually means that more career options will be available to you.

Find out what the typical degree level is for medicine careers below.

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
Post-Master’s Certificate - awarded for completion of an organized program of study; designed for people who have completed a Master’s degree but do not meet the requirements of academic degrees at the doctoral level.	3.5%
Doctoral Degree	65.4%
Post-Doctoral Training	31.1%

Online Medicine Programs

In the 2020-2021 academic year, 189 schools offered some type of medicine program. The following table lists the number of programs by degree level, along with how many schools offered online courses in the field.

Degree Level	Colleges Offering Programs	Colleges Offering Online Classes
Certificate (Less Than 1 Year)	0	0
Certificate (1-2 years)	0	0
Certificate (2-4 Years)	0	0
Associate’s Degree	0	0
Bachelor’s Degree	0	0
Post-Baccalaureate	0	0
Master’s Degree	0	0
Post-Master’s	3	0
Doctor’s Degree (Research)	1	0
Doctor’s Degree (Professional Practice)	195	0
Doctor’s Degree (Other)	0	0

Is a Degree in Medicine Worth It?

The median salary for a medicine grad is $203,880 per year. This is based on the weighted average of the most common careers associated with the major.

This is 411% more than the average salary for an individual holding a high school degree. This adds up to a gain of about $3,279,600 after 20 years!

Majors Related to Medicine

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to medicine.

Major	Number of Grads
Nursing	66,964
Rehabilitation & Therapeutic Professions	24,774
Public Health	19,473
Health & Medical Administrative Services	17,335
Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Sciences	16,952
Mental & Social Health Services	16,815
Allied Health Professions	12,950
Communication Sciences	10,547
Dentistry	6,770
Bioethics/Medical Ethics	4,684
Chiropractic	2,658
Alternative Medicine & Systems	2,582
Dietetics & Clinical Nutrition Services	2,481
Optometry	1,822
Advanced Dentistry & Oral Sciences	1,762
Medical Illustration & Informatics	1,747
Health Sciences & Services	1,746
Other Health Professions	1,261
Health/Medical Prep Programs	1,122
Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science	954
Medical Science	909
Allied Health & Medical Assisting Services	462
Dental Support Services	122
Alternative Medical Support Services	80
Movement & Mind-Body Therapies	55
Energy & Biologically Based Therapies	37
Ophthalmic & Optometric Support Services	11
Practical Nursing & Nursing Assistants	4
Health Aids/Attendants/Orderlies	0

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• College Scorecard
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers First Quarter 2020

More about our data sources and methodologies.