CCollegeMatcher

Emergency Medicine Physicians

US occupation · SOC 29-1214

Job titles people report: Attending Emergency Physician, Attending Physician, Emergency MD (Emergency Medicine Doctor), Emergency Medicine Physician (EM Physician), Emergency Physician, MD (Medical Doctor), Physician

Pay and outlook

Median annual wage, May 2025
$335,550
Half earn more, half earn less
Middle half earn
$184,830 – $418,890
25th to 75th percentile
People employed, May 2025
32,880
Wage and salary jobs (OEWS)
Projected change, 2025–35
+3.2%
Growing slower than all jobs (0% to under 3.5%)
Openings a year (projected)
900
New jobs plus replacing people who leave
Typical education to enter
Doctoral or professional degree
BLS
  • All figures are for the United States as a whole. Pay varies a lot by state and city.
  • Wages are for everyone working in the occupation in May 2025, at every career stage. They are not starting salaries or figures for new graduates.
  • Growth and openings are BLS projections for 2025–35. They are estimates, not promises. Openings include jobs that open up when people retire or change occupation, not just new jobs.

What the work involves

Make immediate medical decisions and act to prevent death or further disability. Provide immediate recognition, evaluation, care, stabilization, and disposition of patients. May direct emergency medical staff in an emergency department.

Main tasks

  • Select, request, perform, or interpret diagnostic procedures, such as laboratory tests, electrocardiograms, emergency ultrasounds, and radiographs.
  • Evaluate patients' vital signs or laboratory data to determine emergency intervention needs and priority of treatment.
  • Perform emergency resuscitations on patients.
  • Stabilize patients in critical condition.
  • Perform such medical procedures as emergent cricothyrotomy, endotracheal intubation, and emergency thoracotomy.
  • Analyze records, examination information, or test results to diagnose medical conditions.
  • Consult with hospitalists and other professionals, such as social workers, regarding patients' hospital admission, continued observation, transition of care, or discharge.
  • Conduct primary patient assessments that include information from prior medical care.

Description and tasks from the O*NET® 31.0 Database.

Getting in

Typical education to enter (BLS)
Doctoral or professional degree
Training once hired: internship/residency
O*NET Job Zone 5
Extensive preparation
Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Interests it suits

The strongest of the six O*NET interest types for this occupation, highest first. The short glosses are ours.

  • Investigative: research, analysis and solving problems with ideas
  • Social: helping, teaching and caring for people
  • Conventional: organising information, records and procedures

Fields of study that lead here

From the federal CIP–SOC crosswalk, which links 15 programmes to this occupation. A link means the programme prepares people for this kind of work. It doesn't mean the programme is required, or that it's the only route.

Health & Nursing

  • Medicine
  • Osteopathic Medicine/Osteopathy

Find colleges that fit you with our matcher: choose Health & Nursing at the Major step.

Where many students take health & nursing

Ordered by the field's share of degrees awarded times undergraduate enrolment (College Scorecard), among colleges with at least 1,000 undergraduates. Online universities are included. It's a rough measure of how big the programme is. It says nothing about quality. The share counts every programme in the field, not only the ones linked to this career.

Other fields

Our college matcher doesn't offer this field as a major, so we can't suggest colleges for it here.

Medical Residency/Fellowship Programs

  • Emergency Medicine/Anesthesiology Combined Specialty Program
  • Family Medicine/Emergency Medicine Combined Specialty Program
  • Internal Medicine/Emergency Medicine Combined Specialty Program
  • Internal Medicine/Emergency Medicine/Critical Care Medicine Combined Specialty Program
  • Pediatrics/Emergency Medicine Combined Specialty Program
  • Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Program
  • Wilderness Medicine Fellowship Program
  • Emergency Medicine Residency Program
5 more programmes
  • Disaster Medicine Fellowship Program
  • Emergency Medical Services Fellowship Program
  • Emergency Medicine Residency/Fellowship Programs, Other
  • Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Program
  • Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship Program

Related careers

Related occupations from the O*NET database, in its order.

← All careers

Sources

This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. CollegeMatcher has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET 31.0 Database · CC BY 4.0

Changes: we show the core tasks in the O*NET database with the highest importance ratings (up to eight, in that order), the top three O*NET interest types by score, and shortened Job Zone names. Titles, descriptions and task text are unchanged.

Wages: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Projections, typical entry education and training: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections 2025–35. Fields of study: NCES and BLS CIP 2020–SOC 2018 Crosswalk. All public domain. OEWS · Employment Projections · CIP–SOC crosswalk