Gynecologic Oncology — Specialty Profile

Exploratory, not prescriptive. This profile blends hard data (pay, match rates, burnout, demographics — each sourced and dated) with generalizations and synthesized online opinion about culture and "who fits." It's here to help you get curious and go find out for yourself — not to tell you who to become. Numbers marked ⟳ verify change every year; check the linked source before you quote one. Last reviewed: 2026-07-25.

Subspecialty fellowship of OB/GYN.

Also called: gyn onc, gyn-onc. Reached through OB/GYN, so you match into an OB/GYN residency first and then apply to fellowship. Organ systems: cancers of the female reproductive tract (ovary, uterus/endometrium, cervix, vulva, vagina).

The 30-second version

Gynecologic oncology is the rare corner of medicine where one doctor is the surgeon and the oncologist and the doctor who carries the patient to the end. A gyn onc does the long, radical pelvic operations for reproductive-tract cancers, prescribes and manages the chemotherapy themselves, and then follows the same woman through surveillance, recurrence, and, often, the end of her life. In most cancers those are three different people; here they're one. That total ownership is the whole personality of the field: it's the source of the prestige, the strong pay, and the profound reported meaning, alongside the long training, heavy hours, and cumulative grief that come bundled with it.1

Quick dashboard (details and sources below)
Training after med school OB/GYN residency (4) + Gyn-Onc fellowship (3–4) = 7–8 yrs after med school
Total from college start ~15–16 years (4 undergrad + 4 med school + 4 residency + 3–4 fellowship)
Competitiveness (as an OB/GYN fellowship) High — near-100% fill, MD-dominated, more rankers than positions ⟳
Typical full-time pay The only gyn-onc-specific figures published anywhere: SGO's member-survey medians, $500,000 for men and $380,000 for women (n=263, 2020). Parent OB/GYN runs ~$390,000 ⟳
Pay range (structure) No published percentile ladder. SGO academic means: $461,054 men · $349,717 women ⟳
Lifestyle Demanding — often 60+ hrs/wk, long OR days, low-to-moderate schedule control ⟳
Burnout Parent OB/GYN 45.7% on the AMA's 2025 survey, against a 41.9% all-physician baseline; the only gyn-onc-specific figure is SGO's own, ~32–40% in 2014–15, alongside unusually high meaning and "would do it again" ⟳
% women ~80% of fellows (parent OB/GYN 88.2% of residents, 64.1% practicing) ⟳
DO / IMG accessibility Limited — ~82% US MD, ~10% DO, ~7% IMG of matched fellows ⟳

What they actually do

Gynecologic oncologists treat cancers of the female reproductive tract: ovarian, uterine and endometrial, cervical, and vulvar and vaginal. What makes the role almost unique in medicine is that it braids three jobs into one: a gyn onc is a surgeon (radical hysterectomy, cytoreductive/debulking operations that can run 6–10+ hours and cross into bowel, bladder, spleen, and diaphragm), a medical oncologist (they prescribe and personally manage the chemotherapy, where in most cancers a separate oncologist does this), and a longitudinal cancer doctor who carries the patient from diagnosis through surgery, chemo, surveillance, recurrence, and end of life.1 Increasingly the surgery is robotic/minimally invasive, especially for endometrial and cervical cancers.2

The scope is the point: instead of operating and handing off, you stay her doctor for years. Fellows train so broadly that they rotate through urology, colorectal surgery, and radiation oncology, because advanced tumors don't respect organ boundaries.3 And the specialty is one of the few where who operates measurably changes outcomes: ovarian cancer patients have better survival when a gyn onc, rather than a general gynecologist or general surgeon, does the surgery.3

Representative procedures & work: radical hysterectomy · cytoreductive ("debulking") surgery for advanced ovarian cancer · robotic/minimally invasive hysterectomy and staging · pelvic exenteration · lymph node dissection · management and administration of systemic chemotherapy · management of post-op complications and malignant bowel obstruction · tumor boards and multidisciplinary cancer care · clinical-trial and research work.14

A day in the life: the week is dictated by long OR blocks, chemo clinic, a heavy inpatient census (post-op complications, malignant bowel obstructions, neutropenic patients), and tumor boards. Surgical complications and dying patients don't respect a schedule. Call is generally less punishing than the night-float delivery call of general OB/GYN (no labor & delivery), but the acuity of who's calling is higher.1

The training path & time to completion

Medical school (4 yrs) → OB/GYN residency (4 yrs) → Gyn-Onc fellowship (3–4 yrs) → board-eligible via ABOG subspecialty certification. You do not enter gyn onc from medical school. It is reached through OB/GYN. You match into an ACGME OB/GYN residency first, complete it, and then apply through the NRMP fellowship match.56

  • Fellowship is 3–4 years and varies by program; NRMP lists gyn-onc as "3–4 years," and ABOG maintains a dedicated FAQ for 4-year programs that exist alongside 3-year tracks (several top programs, e.g. MSK, run 4 years with a research year up front).578
  • Research-heavy by design. A typical 3-year structure (e.g., UT Southwestern) is ~24 months clinical + 12 months protected research, and fellows must design, conduct, and defend a thesis suitable for publication before graduating, and the research year is a defining feature.910 ⟳
  • Board: the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG) Gynecologic Oncology subspecialty certification, through a written Qualifying Exam plus an oral Certifying Exam; general OB/GYN certification is required first.10
  • Total from the start of college: ~15–16 years (4 undergrad + 4 med school + 4 residency + 3–4 fellowship), or 7–8 years after medical school.11

How competitive is it? (as an OB/GYN fellowship)

Because gyn onc is a fellowship, its competitiveness works differently from a residency Match: the pool is already OB/GYN residents, and the numbers run through the NRMP Specialties Matching Service (the fall gyn-onc match), not the Main Residency Match.

For the 2026 appointment year (matched fall 2025): 71 programs, 88 positions offered, and 87 filled, a 98.9% fill rate with one unfilled program. Ninety-nine applicants ranked programs for those 88 positions (77 of them US MD graduates), an applicant-to-position ratio of ~1.13:1.6 The prior year (2025) filled 100% (86/86) at ~1.03:1.12 ⟳

What that means for you:

  • The match fills essentially completely every year, and positions are growing modestly (68→71 programs, 86→88 positions from 2025→2026).612 ⟳
  • The applicant pool exceeds positions, so a meaningful number of applicants go unmatched each cycle, and the ranked-applicant ratio understates the real competition, because only residents confident enough to rank are counted (total applications per program run higher).6 ⟳
  • It is MD-dominated: among matched fellows in 2026, ~82% US MD, ~10% DO, ~7% IMG.6 ⟳

The honest read: gyn onc is regarded as among the most competitive OB/GYN fellowships: surgically and academically demanding, research-forward, and reached only by strong OB/GYN residents. The pressure is selectivity rather than sheer applicant volume, and plenty of applicants don't fit or don't match.

Compensation — the robust version

A source caveat first, and it is a big one. No compensation survey publishes a gyn-onc figure. Doximity and Medscape report the OB/GYN parent category and break out no OB/GYN subspecialty. BLS does not track it as an occupation. MGMA's subspecialty tables are paywalled. Physician Side Gigs, the one survey that does publish an OB/GYN subspecialty ladder, states that gynecologic oncology and obstetrics-only "lacked enough data points to populate aggregate data" and leaves both off its table.213

So there is exactly one gyn-onc-specific compensation source in existence, and it belongs to the field's own society. The SGO State of the Society survey (n=263, 2020) reported a median salary of $500,000 for men and $380,000 for women. In academic practice the means were $461,054 for men and $349,717 for women, men had 1.77× the odds of earning above the survey median, and fewer than a quarter of women in academic practice earned above it.14 Those numbers are six years old, and SGO's 2025 edition is sold rather than published, so the current figures are not readable by anyone who has not bought the report.2 ⟳

Read the gender gap as the field's central compensation fact rather than as a footnote to it. A $120,000 median difference is not a rounding artifact, and it sits in a specialty where roughly 80% of trainees are women. If you are one of them, the single most useful thing on this page is that the society's own survey found the gap and published it. ⟳

Where it sits on the OB/GYN ladder, honestly. General OB/GYN averages ~$390,000 (Doximity 2025 $389,566; Medscape 2026 ~$390,000).13 The Physician Side Gigs survey of full-time OB/GYNs, mid-2023 to mid-2024, ranks the subspecialties it could measure: maternal-fetal medicine $513,000 · reproductive endocrinology $461,000 · urogynecology $402,000 · general OB/GYN $376,000 · OB hospitalist $297,000 · gynecology only $289,000.13 Gyn onc is widely described as the top-paying OB/GYN subspecialty, and no source publishes a ranking that supports it. The one survey that ranks the others declines to place gyn onc at all, and the only gyn-onc figures anyone has published, SGO's $500,000 and $380,000, sit at and below maternal-fetal medicine's $513,000. Treat the reputation as a reputation. ⟳

What is defensible about the pay is the mechanism rather than the rank. Gyn onc revenue is unusually multi-pronged: long high-RVU debulking and radical cases, high-volume robotic and minimally invasive surgery, and chemotherapy administration layering infusion economics on top of surgical income, which almost no other surgical field does. Employment has shifted structurally toward salaried hospital and health-system roles concentrated in academic centers, NCI cancer centers, and large systems, and pay in those roles is heavily productivity-driven.4 Academic and teaching roles pay less than private and hospital-employed ones, which SGO's academic means confirm within the field, and they buy research time, tumor boards, and trial access in exchange. OB/GYN compensation rose about 5% in 2025 and the parent field is among the most in-demand in medicine.15 ⟳

Geography. No gyn-onc-specific state table exists from any source. The general physician-compensation pattern holds: rural, Midwest, South, and lower-cost, lower-competition markets tend to pay more in absolute dollars, and high-cost coastal metros and dense academic markets pay less nominally. For gyn onc specifically, cancer-center concentration and referral volume matter more than they do for general OB/GYN, which cuts against that pattern, and no published data resolves which effect wins.16 ⟳

Lifestyle & the trade you're making

Gyn onc is not a lifestyle specialty, and the field is candid about it.

  • Hours are heavy. SGO survey data historically show nearly 60% of gyn oncs work more than 60 hours/week. Salary aggregators peg a "typical" week around 54 hours, but that undercounts operative and inpatient-heavy stretches.1
  • The day is unpredictable. Long OR blocks, chemo clinic, a sick inpatient census, and tumor boards; surgical complications and dying patients don't wait.1
  • Schedule control is moderate-to-low. More control than a general OB/GYN drowning in unpredictable deliveries and night call, but the cancer-surgery + inpatient load means the week is dictated by sick patients and long cases.1
  • Call is generally less punishing than OB delivery call (no L&D), but the acuity of who's calling is higher.1

Lifestyle rating: 2/5. High meaning and no L&D night-float, but long OR days, 60+ hour weeks, and a schedule set by very sick patients. The pay is strong precisely because the hours and complexity are.

Wellbeing — the part to take seriously

The signature paradox of this field: the distress numbers are genuinely alarming and the meaning/satisfaction numbers are among the highest in medicine. Both are true at once.

From the landmark SGO membership burnout studies (2014–2015 surveys, published in AJOG):1718

  • ~32–40% meet criteria for burnout on the society's own membership surveys, fielded 2014–15. That is the only gyn-onc-specific burnout measurement anyone has published, and it is a decade old.17 ⟳
  • The current cross-specialty anchor belongs to the parent field. The AMA's 2025 Organizational Biopsy puts obstetrics and gynecology at 45.7% reporting at least one burnout symptom, against an all-physician 41.9%, which places OB/GYN above average on the instrument that is free and primary. Gyn onc has no row of its own there.19 ⟳
  • 33% screened positive for depression; 14% reported panic attacks; 13% reported suicidal ideation in the studied period.17
  • Yet only ~9% sought psychiatric care in the prior year and ~45% expressed reluctance to seek help, a treatment gap larger than in comparison groups.17
  • And 89% said they would choose medicine again and 61% would recommend the field to their own children, very high for such a demanding specialty.17
  • Drivers of burnout were administrative/EHR load, work-life imbalance, and loss of autonomy, rather than the cancer care itself. Protective factors: older age and greater career satisfaction.17

The emotional weight is specific. Because the gyn onc operates on the patient, gives her chemo, and often walks her through recurrence and death, the continuity is unusually intense, and so is the accumulated grief. Oncology writing reframes "burnout" here as moral injury: the gap between a physician's values and what the system lets them deliver.20

A documented gender disparity. A 2020 SGO survey (543 respondents) found female gyn oncs report substantially higher burnout than males in several regions (e.g., ~41% vs. ~19% in the Northeast) and rate their work-life balance lowest across the board. Male gyn oncs burn out too, since it's a whole-field issue, but the load is not evenly distributed, and it overlaps hard with family-building years.18 ⟳

Career longevity. The work is physically taxing (long standing cases) and emotionally cumulative, but satisfaction rises with age and seniority, and many practice long careers, often shifting their surgical-to-clinical ratio over time. Attrition tends to be about system burden and life circumstances more than disillusionment with the mission.117

Who's in the field (demographics)

  • Women: 79.6% of gyn-onc fellows are women (207 of 260, ACGME Table C.21, AY2024-25); the parent OB/GYN category is 88.2% of residents on the same table (5,450 of 6,178) and 64.1% of active physicians (AAMC, 2024 data), one of the most female specialties in medicine.212223 ⟳
  • US MD: ~82% of matched fellows (2026), an MD-dominated fellowship.6 ⟳
  • DO: ~10% of matched fellows (2026), up modestly from ~6% in 2025, a real but limited entry point.6 ⟳
  • IMG: ~7% of matched fellows (2026, US and non-US combined), which is narrow.6 ⟳
  • URiM: gyn onc has a statistically significantly lower proportion of URiM trainees (Hispanic, Black, Native American) than OB/GYN, other surgical fields, and other medical fields (ACGME data, 2016–2019), so the field is disproportionately White and Asian even relative to its parent specialty. The gap is still visible in the current year. Of 260 gyn-onc fellows in AY2024-25, ACGME counts 151 White and 53 Asian against 21 Hispanic or Latino, 13 Black or African American, and none American Indian, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 34 of 260, or 13.1%. A single-year count cannot show whether a difference is statistically significant against comparison groups, which is what the trend papers are for.242521 ⟳

Culture, personality & the online stereotypes

Who gravitates here: surgically ambitious OB/GYNs who also fell in love with oncology and refused to pick one, people who want to be both the patient's surgeon and her cancer doctor. High-stamina, detail-obsessed, resilient personalities who can hold heavy outcomes without shutting down. Many describe a "calling" quality to it: they want their work to matter unmistakably and are willing to trade lifestyle and years of training for that. As always, plenty of people in the field do not fit any single mold.

The reputation (community caricature rather than fact, and plenty don't fit it): across trainee and physician forums, gyn onc is talked about as "the surgical and oncologic elite of OB/GYN," the most competitive, most operative, and most intellectually broad path out of the residency. The recurring tagline is "you do it all: the OR, the chemo, and the end-of-life conversations," and the consensus mood word is "intense but deeply meaningful." It carries a quiet prestige within OB/GYN, and sometimes a "type-A gunner" label rides along with it, which, like all such labels, fits some people and not many others. Many gyn oncs are gentle and balanced and nothing like the caricature.

What people say across trainee and physician forums (synthesized and paraphrased, not quoted): the picture is admiring and protective. People who love it describe it as the most rewarding thing in medicine: being the one person who owns a woman's entire cancer journey, the surgical challenge of a good debulking, relationships that last years. The cautions are just as consistent: the training is very long (residency plus fellowship), the operative days are exhausting, and the emotional load of losing patients you've known for years is real and cumulative. A recurring thread is that people rarely regret the field but sometimes underestimate the lifestyle, and how much of your identity it absorbs. Women in the threads flag the burnout gender gap and the difficulty of building the career around family years. The overall tone: "amazing field, go in with your eyes open."

Voices from the field. Paraphrased from public writing, with links to the originals:

  • Dr. Hardeep Singh Phull reframes oncologist burnout as moral injury, a mismatch between a compassionate calling and system demands, and notes oncologists carry unusually high empathy and emotional intelligence.20
  • The SGO membership burnout studies establish the field's central paradox in numbers: ~32–40% burnout and sobering depression/suicidal-ideation figures sitting right next to an ~89% "would choose medicine again."17
  • SGO wellness commentary documents both the female-vs-male burnout disparity and the striking mental-health help-seeking gap in the field.18

Why people choose it / why people leave

Why choose it: you're the patient's surgeon and oncologist both, with total ownership of the cancer journey, from OR to chemo to survivorship · major, complex, high-skill surgery · the intellectual breadth of managing chemo and complications too · meaning as fuel (~89% would choose medicine again; ~61% would recommend it to their kids) · strong pay reachable through a standard OB/GYN path, though the only figures published for the field are SGO's 2020 medians and they differ by $120,000 between men and women · a rare field where who operates measurably changes survival.

Why leave or avoid it: very long training (~15–16 years post-college; 7–8 after med school) · heavy hours (often 60+/week) and low-to-moderate schedule control · cumulative emotional load, since you will lose patients you've known for years; documented moral injury and burnout · physically demanding into mid/late career · a documented burnout and pay gender gap that overlaps hard with family-building years.

Best fit if: you're surgically driven and oncology-committed and refuse to pick one · you're emotionally durable and energized rather than drained by long-haul patient relationships · you want your work's stakes and meaning both maximal · you can accept the runway and the hours as the price.

Not for you if: you want predictable, controllable hours or protected time early · you'd rather not carry death and recurrence over years · you dislike very long OR days · the ~15–16-year runway to attending life (and delayed earning) is a dealbreaker · you want to enter a field directly from med school rather than through OB/GYN first.

The FLI angle — Gynecologic Oncology for first-gen, low-income & immigrant students

Where gyn onc fits FLI realities well:

  • High pay and profound meaning, reachable through a standard path. There's no separate elite pipeline: you get into any US OB/GYN residency, excel, and match fellowship. The compensation is genuinely life-changing, family-mobility money by any measure a first-generation student is applying, and the work is unambiguously meaningful. Go in knowing that the only published figures for the field are SGO's, that they are six years old, and that they put women $120,000 below men.14
  • A clear, if long, ladder. The path is well-defined: OB/GYN residency → gyn-onc fellowship. No hidden extra credential is needed to practice at the top of the field.11

Risks to name honestly:

  • Time-to-attending is long. ~15–16 years post-college of trainee-level pay and delayed earning, which bites harder when you're supporting family or carrying loans without a cushion.11
  • The lifestyle is demanding. 60+ hour weeks, low-to-moderate schedule control, physically taxing surgery.1
  • The emotional load is heavy and cumulative. This is not a field you coast through; the documented burnout and mental-health numbers are real, and the help-seeking gap is real too.17
  • Access is narrower than the parent field. Gyn onc is MD-dominated (~82% US MD; ~10% DO, ~7% IMG), and URiM trainees are significantly underrepresented even relative to OB/GYN. It's reachable for DO and IMG OB/GYN residents, but the door is tighter than for many other fellowships.624

Bottom line: for a resilient, surgically-inclined student who wants both financial security and a mission, gyn onc is one of the clearest "high pay and profound meaning" targets in medicine. Go in clear-eyed about the ~15–16-year runway, the 60+ hour weeks, and the cumulative weight of owning a woman's entire cancer fight.111

Fun facts

  • Gyn oncs are one of the few cancer specialists who both operate on and give chemotherapy to the same patient, since in most cancers those are two different doctors.3
  • It's often called the broadest surgical training in all of OB/GYN, since fellows rotate through urology, colorectal, and radiation oncology because advanced tumors don't respect organ boundaries.3
  • Cytoreductive ("debulking") surgery for ovarian cancer can run the better part of a day and involve resecting bowel, spleen, or diaphragm, among the most extensive operations in gynecology.3
  • Despite ranking among medicine's more distressing fields by depression/burnout metrics, its practitioners post one of the highest "would choose medicine again" rates (~89%), the meaning-versus-strain paradox in a single specialty.17
  • Fellowship almost always includes a dedicated research year with a required thesis, so it's a research-forward field, and many gyn oncs run clinical trials in ovarian, endometrial, and cervical cancer.93
  • Evidence consistently shows ovarian cancer patients have better survival when a gyn onc does the surgery rather than a general gynecologist or general surgeon, a rare specialty where "who operates" measurably changes outcomes.3

Sources

Footnotes

  1. What the job is; hours (~60% work >60 hr/wk; aggregators ~54 hr/wk); unpredictable day; moderate-to-low schedule control; call less punishing than OB but higher acuity. SGO survey data and SalaryDr, via life research compilation. https://www.salarydr.com/specialty/gynecologic-oncology SalaryDr panel size: n=14. A self-selected physician panel; the n is disclosed here because it is what the figure rests on. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11

  2. The absence of a gyn-onc compensation survey, and the state of the one society source. Medscape's Physician Compensation Report 2026 and Doximity's 2025 Physician Compensation Report both report OB/GYN as a single line and break out no OB/GYN subspecialty; BLS tracks no gyn-onc occupation; MGMA's subspecialty tables are paywalled. SGO's 2025 State of the Society Survey, the current edition of the only gyn-onc-specific instrument, is sold rather than published: free to survey participants, $150 to SGO members, $300 to non-members, with no figures on the public page. https://www.sgo.org/2025-state-of-the-society-survey/ . So the 2020 edition in 14 remains the newest gyn-onc compensation data any reader can actually see. Corrected 2026-08-13: this page previously gave a "$450,000–$550,000" central estimate, a $540,000 median with a $585,357 average on a self-reported sample of 14, a $455k–$900k percentile ladder, early-career $484k against experienced $686k, an ~84% base / ~$92k bonus structure, a ~57% hospital-employed share, and a $361,535 posting-site median. Every one of those came from a crowd-sourced physician-salary panel or a job-posting aggregator, both of which this site excludes as compensation sources. All are removed, and nothing at any tier replaces them. ⟳ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. Three-jobs-in-one scope; broadest OB/GYN surgical training (urology/colorectal/rad-onc rotations); debulking extent; gyn-onc surgery improves ovarian-cancer survival. Gyn-onc life research compilation; MSK Gynecologic Oncology Fellowship https://www.mskcc.org/hcp-education-training/fellowships/gynecologic-oncology ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  4. Employment models and pay drivers. Multi-pronged revenue (radical and cytoreductive surgery, robotic and minimally invasive volume, chemotherapy administration, high acuity) and the structural shift toward salaried hospital and health-system employment — SGO, via CancerNetwork, "SGO survey offers snapshot of gynecologic oncology" https://www.cancernetwork.com/view/sgo-survey-offers-snapshot-gynecologic-oncology . Corrected 2026-08-13: a ~57% hospital-employed share previously sat here, taken from a crowd-sourced salary panel with 14 gyn-onc respondents; it has been removed. ↩ ↩2

  5. Fellowship length 3–4 years. NRMP OB/GYN Fellowship Match page, 2025 https://www.nrmp.org/fellowship-applicants/participating-fellowships/obstetrics-gynecology-fellowship-match/ ↩ ↩2

  6. 2026 gyn-onc match (71 programs, 88 offered, 87 filled = 98.9%; 99 ranked / 77 US MD; ~1.13:1) and matched-fellow demographics (US MD ~82%, DO ~10%, IMG ~7%). NRMP, Results and Data: Specialties Matching Service, 2026 Appointment Year (2026) https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/SMS_Results_and_Data_2026_Revised-20260522.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  7. 4-year fellowship track exists alongside 3-year. ABOG, Gynecologic Oncology 4-Year Fellowship Programs FAQ, 2026 https://www.abog.org/resources/faqs/gynecologic-oncology-4-year-fellowship-programs-faqs ↩

  8. Many top programs (e.g., MSK) run 4-year fellowships with a dedicated research year up front. MSK Gynecologic Oncology Fellowship https://www.mskcc.org/hcp-education-training/fellowships/gynecologic-oncology ↩

  9. Typical 3-year structure and mandatory thesis (24 mo clinical + 12 mo research). UT Southwestern Gyn-Onc Fellowship Program Structure, 2026 https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/departments/obstetrics-gynecology/divisions/gynecologic-oncology/fellowship/program-structure.html ↩ ↩2

  10. Board certification (ABOG Gyn-Onc subspecialty: written Qualifying + oral Certifying exam; general OB/GYN certification required first). ABOG Gynecologic Oncology Qualifying Exam page, 2026 https://www.abog.org/get-certified/subspecialty-certification/step-1-qualifying-exam/eligibility-requirements ↩ ↩2

  11. Full training chain and time to completion (~15–16 yrs post-college; 7–8 after med school). NRMP SMS 2026 and ABOG, as above. https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/SMS_Results_and_Data_2026_Revised-20260522.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  12. 2025 gyn-onc match (68 programs, 86 offered, 86 filled = 100%; ~1.03:1; US MD 87.2%, DO 5.8%, IMG ~7.0%). NRMP, Results and Data: Specialties Matching Service, 2025 Appointment Year (2025) https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/SMS_Results_and_Data_2025.pdf ↩ ↩2

  13. OB/GYN parent category and the subspecialty ladder, read from the survey rather than from a relay. Doximity 2025 Physician Compensation Report (2024 earnings) — OB/GYN $389,566; oncology $502,465: https://www.doximity.com/reports/physician-compensation-report/2025 . Medscape Ob/Gyn Compensation Report 2026 (~$390,000), paywalled at the primary: https://www.nuaxia.com/post/medscape-ob-gyn-compensation-report . Physician Side Gigs, average OB/GYN salary survey, data collected mid-2023 through mid-2024, full-time respondents (36+ hours/week) — maternal-fetal medicine $513,000, reproductive endocrinology $461,000, urogynecology $402,000, general OB/GYN $376,000, OB/GYN hospitalist $297,000, gynecology only $289,000, family medicine with OB $302,000; all OB/GYNs $370,000, full-time $375,000. The survey states that gynecological oncology and obstetrics-only "lacked enough data points to populate aggregate data" and publishes no figure for either. https://www.physiciansidegigs.com/average-obgyn-salary ⟳ Corrected 2026-08-13: the ladder previously reached this page through a locums agency's salary guide, which listed "Gyn-Onc $380k–$500k" as a Physician Side Gigs figure. Physician Side Gigs publishes no gyn-onc figure at all, and $380,000 and $500,000 are the two SGO gender medians in 14 presented as if they were a range. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  14. Academic vs. private and the gender pay gap. SGO State of the Society survey (n=263, 2020): median $500k men vs. $380k women; academic means $461,054 men vs. $349,717 women; men 1.77× odds above median in academia. https://www.sgo.org/news/survey-shows-significant-gender-pay-gap-in-gynecologic-oncology/ ; https://www.mdedge.com/hematology-oncology/article/220821/gynecologic-cancer/survey-reveals-gender-pay-discrepancies-among ; private-vs-employed "surgical/procedural intensity" — Medscape Ob/Gyn 2026 https://www.nuaxia.com/post/medscape-ob-gyn-compensation-report ; shift to salaried employment — SGO/CancerNetwork https://www.cancernetwork.com/view/sgo-survey-offers-snapshot-gynecologic-oncology ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  15. Recent trends. OB/GYN comp +~5% in 2025 and among most in-demand specialties — Medscape Ob/Gyn 2026 https://www.nuaxia.com/post/medscape-ob-gyn-compensation-report ; Doximity 2025 https://www.doximity.com/reports/physician-compensation-report/2025 ↩

  16. Geography. No authoritative gyn-onc state table exists at any tier. The rural and cost-of-living pattern described here is the general physician-compensation pattern, and the cancer-center-concentration point that cuts against it is a structural read rather than a published finding. Corrected 2026-08-13: state-level OB/GYN wage figures previously stood here, attributed to BLS OEWS but reaching this page through a locums agency's salary guide. They have been removed rather than re-sourced, because BLS does not publish a gyn-onc series and the OB/GYN one would not have supported the claim they were making. ↩

  17. SGO membership burnout studies (2014–15 surveys, AJOG): ~32–40% burnout; 33% depression screen-positive; 14% panic attacks; 13% suicidal ideation; ~9% sought psychiatric care / ~45% reluctant; 89% would choose medicine again; 61% would recommend to their children; drivers admin/EHR/work-life/autonomy. SGO Physician Burnout & Wellness review https://www.sgo.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Physician_Burnout_Wellness_journal_article.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  18. 2020 SGO survey (543 respondents): female gyn oncs report higher burnout (e.g., ~41% vs ~19% Northeast) and lowest work-life balance; mental-health help-seeking gap. Physicians Weekly — SGO on Wellness & Burnout https://www.physiciansweekly.com/post/sgo-on-wellness-burnout-and-gynecologic-oncology ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  19. Cross-specialty burnout context. AMA, Organizational Biopsy 2025 (~19,000 physicians, 38 states, 106 health systems) — obstetrics and gynecology 45.7% reporting at least one burnout symptom, against a 41.9% all-physician average; the AMA publishes no gynecologic oncology row. https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/physician-health/these-9-physician-specialties-report-highest-burnout-rates A second, freely readable instrument: Medscape's Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2024 puts both the broader "OB/GYN" and "oncology" categories at ~53% against its own all-physician average of 49%, https://resources.healthgrades.com/pro/the-most-and-least-burned-out-physicians-by-specialty . Medscape is paywalled and reaches this page through relays, and its baseline sits seven points above the AMA's — the two never belong in the same sentence, and a cross-specialty rank must name which survey it comes from. Corrected 2026-08-17: the wellbeing section previously ran "~32–40% meet criteria for burnout. In line with high-burnout surgical/oncology fields (Medscape 2024 put the broader 'oncology' and 'OB/GYN' categories at ~53%)." Those are two instruments measured a decade apart and their figures are 13 to 21 points apart, so "in line with" asserted an agreement that does not exist; and against either published baseline, 32–40% is below average rather than high, which the dashboard row also had backwards. The SGO figure now stands on its own field year and the parent field's AMA row is given separately. ↩

  20. Oncologist burnout reframed as moral injury. Dr. Hardeep Singh Phull, Op-Med (Doximity), "The Catch-22 of Oncology" https://opmed.doximity.com/articles/the-catch-22-of-oncology ↩ ↩2

  21. ACGME, Data Resource Book, Academic Year 2024-2025, read directly. Table C.21, active residents by specialty, subspecialty and sex: gynecologic oncology, 75 programs, 260 fellows, 207 women (79.6%), 53 men (20.4%); obstetrics and gynecology, 303 programs, 6,178 residents, 5,450 women (88.2%), 686 men (11.1%). Table C.23, active residents by specialty, subspecialty and race/ethnicity: gynecologic oncology, 151 White, 53 Asian, 21 Hispanic or Latino, 13 Black or African American, 0 American Indian or Alaskan Native, 0 Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 15 multiple, 4 other, 3 unknown, summing to the same 260. Sex and race/ethnicity in this book are self-reported and supplied by the AAMC. https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/publicationsbooks/2024-2025_acgme_databook_document.pdf Corrected 2026-08-17: the demographics section previously said "nothing more recent is published at the per-year level" for race by specialty and pointed at AAMC's 2019 Diversity in Medicine as the last citable figures. ACGME publishes Table C.23 every academic year, and the current one supports the same underrepresentation the trend papers found. The 88.2% figure was also attributed to AAMC and belongs to Table C.21. ↩ ↩2

  22. OB/GYN active physicians, 64.1% women (2024 data). AAMC, 2025 Physician Specialty Data Report — Key Findings: "Pediatrics (66.7%), obstetrics and gynecology (64.1%), and hospice and palliative medicine (63.1%) had the highest percentages of female physicians." https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/data/2025-key-findings . The earlier AAMC release, "What's your specialty?" (2021 data), put the same figure at 60.5% and OB/GYN residents and fellows at 86.4%, https://www.aamc.org/news/what-s-your-specialty-new-data-show-choices-america-s-doctors-gender-race-and-age ; treat that as the older vintage of the same series. Corrected 2026-08-17: the demographics section cited this footnote for 64.1% while the footnote carried only the 2021 figure of 60.5%, so a reader who followed the citation found a number 3.6 points lower than the one on the page. The 2025 release that publishes 64.1% is now named with its data year. ↩

  23. A second reading of the same two populations. AMA (citing AMA/AAMC/JAMA, 2024–25 data) publishes gyn-onc trainees at 80.4% women and OB/GYN trainees at 88.6% women, https://www.ama-assn.org/medical-students/preparing-residency/these-physician-specialties-have-biggest-gender-imbalances . Both sit within a point of ACGME's direct counts in 21, which is the source the text quotes. ↩

  24. URiM significantly underrepresented in gyn-onc fellowships (ACGME 2016–2019). Ngo NT, Aniagolu N, Lang J, Mcdougale A, Ekwenna O., "Underrepresented minority representation trends in gynecologic oncology fellowships in the United States," Gynecologic Oncology 2021;160:485–491. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33276987/ Corrected 2026-08-17: this footnote gave the byline as "Blank JG et al." and the year as 2020. The PMID it cites is Ngo et al. in Gynecologic Oncology, 2021. ↩ ↩2

  25. Low URiM representation across OB/GYN subspecialty training including gyn onc. Talbott JMV, Wasson MN, "Sex and Racial/Ethnic Diversity in Accredited Obstetrics and Gynecology Specialty and Subspecialty Training in the United States," Journal of Surgical Education 2022;79:818–827, covering ACGME reports from 2012 to 2018: gyn onc had the highest share of White trainees of the four OB/GYN fellowships studied, 73.45%, against 54.20% for OB/GYN residents and 42.96% for residents overall (p = 0.0003). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35033485/ Corrected 2026-08-17: this footnote gave the byline as "Rimel BJ et al." and the journal as Am J Obstet Gynecol. The PMID it cites is Talbott and Wasson in the Journal of Surgical Education. ↩

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