Obstetrics & Gynecology (OB/GYN) — 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.

Also called: OB/GYN, OB, the "women's health" specialty. Base residency you enter straight from medical school. Organ system: the female reproductive tract, plus a whole-body obstetric physiology no other field owns.

The 30-second version

OB/GYN is the specialty that lives on two sides of one identity at once, surgeon and continuity doctor. In a single week you might do a laparoscopic hysterectomy in the OR, run a clinic full of Pap smears and prenatal visits, counsel a patient you've known for a decade, and get pulled at 3 a.m. for a crashing delivery. It is one of very few fields that gives you both the operating room and a longitudinal panel of patients you follow for years. The price of that combination is a schedule obstetrics refuses to control, malpractice premiums among the highest in all of medicine, and, since 2022, a legal landscape that can shape where you're even allowed to train and practice. That bundle of cutting plus continuity, meaning plus unpredictability, is the whole personality of the field.

Quick dashboard (details and sources below)
Training after med school 4 years
Total from college start ~12 years (4 undergrad + 4 med school + 4 residency)
Competitiveness Moderate-to-fairly competitive — fills ~99.9% every year ⟳
Typical full-time pay ~$370,000–$400,000 total comp ⟳
Pay range (structure) ~$200k (low employed/GYN-only) → ~$439k (partner/owner) → $500k–$1M (subspecialty/high-volume) ⟳
Lifestyle Surgical + clinic + 24/7 L&D — low schedule control unless you go "laborist"
Burnout 45.7% against a 41.9% all-physician average (AMA 2025), fourth of the nine specialties it names as most burned out. Medscape 2024 reads it higher on its own scale, ~53% against a 49% average ⟳
% women 64.1% practicing; 88.2% of residents ⟳
DO / IMG accessibility DO-friendly (~20% of entering class); IMG limited (~6%) ⟳
Defining costs Highest-tier malpractice premiums + post-Dobbs practice geography

What they actually do

OB/GYNs are the physicians for the female reproductive system across an entire lifespan and, uniquely, for the whole-body physiology of pregnancy. The work splits into two braided halves. Obstetrics is prenatal care, labor management, vaginal and operative (cesarean) delivery, and the management of obstetric emergencies: hemorrhage, preeclampsia, a ruptured ectopic, a fetus in distress. Gynecology is the surgical and ambulatory care of the reproductive tract: Pap smears and contraception, evaluation of bleeding and pelvic pain, and operations from minor procedures to major abdominal and laparoscopic/robotic surgery (hysterectomy, ovarian and fibroid surgery). Most generalists do all of it.

The core skill is holding a surgeon's judgment and a primary-care doctor's continuity in the same career, rather than any single procedure, and being able to flip instantly from a routine clinic day to a life-threatening emergency, because a normal delivery can become a resuscitation in minutes. OB/GYNs are also, for many women, the doctor they see most across decades of their life, which makes it as much a relationship specialty as a procedural one.

Representative procedures: vaginal and cesarean delivery · operative vaginal delivery (vacuum/forceps) · management of postpartum hemorrhage · dilation & curettage · laparoscopic and robotic surgery · abdominal and vaginal hysterectomy · management of ectopic pregnancy · colposcopy and LEEP · IUD/implant placement · obstetric and gynecologic ultrasound · management of preeclampsia and obstetric emergencies.

A week in the life: The generalist's week is a rotation through modes rather than a single rhythm. Clinic days are back-to-back short visits: prenatal checks, contraception counseling, Paps, bleeding and pain workups, often "too many patients in too little time." OR days are elective gyn surgery. Then there's L&D: continuous coverage of the labor deck, where you may be scrubbed into an elective case and get pulled to a crashing delivery, or spend a night waiting on labor that arrives on its own schedule. Deliveries and obstetric emergencies happen at 3 a.m., on holidays, and during your kid's recital. Obstetrics does not respect a calendar, and that lack of control, more than raw hours, is what physicians name as the hardest part.1

The training path & time to completion

Medical school (4 yrs) → OB/GYN residency (4 yrs) → board-eligible, then a distinctive two-step ABOG certification. No fellowship is required to practice as a generalist attending.2

  • Residency (4 years, PGY-1 to PGY-4): An ACGME-accredited 48-month program that integrates obstetrics, gynecology, gynecologic surgery, and ambulatory women's health. PGY-1 builds foundations (L&D, gyn wards, clinic, off-service rotations); PGY-2/3 ramp up operative volume and subspecialty blocks; PGY-4 is the chief year running L&D and the gyn-surgery service. ABOG requires the full 48 months to be board-eligible.2
  • Board: the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology (ABOG). Certification comes in two steps. First the Qualifying Examination (a computer-based written MCQ exam of clinical knowledge, taken after residency). Then the distinctive Certifying Examination, an in-person oral exam built around a case list from the candidate's own early practice, taken after you've accumulated real cases in independent practice. Full certification therefore typically lands a few years after residency ends.2
  • Total from the start of college: ~12 years (4 + 4 + 4). Add ~2–4 years for a fellowship.

How competitive is it?

OB/GYN is a surgical specialty that fills essentially all of its positions every single year, the near-opposite of Emergency Medicine's recent unfilled-spots saga.

  • 2026 Match (categorical, PGY-1): 310 programs, 1,638 positions, 1,636 filled, a 99.9% fill rate with two unfilled spots, from 2,240 applicants.3 ⟳
  • 2024 Match: 1,539 categorical positions with only six left unfilled, a 99.6% fill rate, and ~90.7% of positions going to US MD and DO seniors combined, one of the highest US-senior fill rates of any specialty. OB/GYN has filled >99% of offered positions for five straight years, and positions offered grew every year over 2015–2024.4 ⟳
  • How hard for the applicant: the near-100% fill plus ~90% US-senior fill means real pressure. The US MD-senior match rate into OB/GYN was 85.7% in 2024, meaning roughly 1 in 7 US MD seniors who ranked it did not match.5 ⟳
  • Matched US-MD seniors (2024): mean USMLE Step 2 CK 252 (unmatched 244); matched applicants also carried more research (mean 9.0 abstracts/presentations/publications vs 6.8) and more contiguous ranks (12.3 vs 7.2). With Step 1 now pass/fail, Step 2 CK is the main numeric screen.5 ⟳

The honest read: OB/GYN is reliably attainable but not a safety. It takes a genuine, focused application (solid Step 2 CK, real OB/GYN experience, letters), and every year a meaningful slice of applicants who want it don't get it. Its accessibility for DO graduates is a real strength (below); for IMGs it is much tighter.

Compensation — the robust version

OB/GYN is best understood as a "well-paid non-subspecialty": comfortably above primary care, comfortably below the surgical subspecialties (ortho, neurosurgery, plastics, cardiology), sitting right around the national physician median. But the net economics of the field are shaped by two forces almost no other specialty carries at this intensity: the highest-tier malpractice premiums in medicine, and post-Dobbs practice geography. A note on sources first: the surveys disagree by ~$100k because they measure different things (W-2 payroll vs. self-reported total comp vs. group-practice benchmark). Treat MGMA/Doximity/Medscape as the anchors and BLS as a W-2-only floor.678

National number. Depending on source and definition, OB/GYN lands from ~$279,040 (BLS payroll mean, W-2 only and understated) to ~$399,519 (MGMA 2024 median total comp), with Medscape 2025 at ~$372,000 and Doximity 2025 at ~$389,566. A defensible "typical full-time" figure for 2026 is ~$370,000–$400,000 total compensation.678 ⟳

The spread (structure). Physician Side Gigs' 2024 community survey shows a full range of roughly $200,000 to $1,000,000, with a full-time median of $342,000 and average of $375,000 (part-time $323,000). The gap from a low-end employed GYN-only physician ($289k) to a high-volume subspecialist or high-productivity partner ($500k–$1M) spans roughly 3–5x. BLS's May 2025 ladder runs from a 10th percentile of $94,680 to a 90th of $437,300, and because it is W-2 payroll its high end still sits below the partner and high-volume figures above.6 ⟳

Ownership matters more than seniority. Physician Side Gigs 2024: W-2 employee ~$368,000 against partner or owner ~$439,000, so partners earn ~19% more, driven by ancillary revenue and profit distributions. Starting salary (Merritt Hawkins 2025 average offer) is ~$371,000, which sits close to the W-2 mean. The big jump comes from ownership and volume rather than from tenure.76 ⟳

Geography: scarcity pays, and the coasts discount.

  • By region (MGMA 2024 median): South $423,984 (highest) · Midwest $412,730 · East $395,117 · West $376,334 (lowest).8 ⟳
  • By state (surveys disagree because they measure different things): MGMA 2024 tops out with South Dakota $528,243, North Dakota $517,831, New York $507,047; Physician Side Gigs 2024 shows Indiana $465k, North Carolina $452k, California $437k highest and New Jersey $280k, Massachusetts $291k, Michigan $301k lowest, a ~66% gap top to bottom. BLS's W-2 view puts Louisiana $397,990, Utah $385,660 and Vermont $376,670 highest and Alabama $208,080 lowest.786 ⟳
  • The pattern: pay is highest where physicians are scarce and cost of living and malpractice are moderate, meaning the rural Plains and Midwest and much of the South. High-cost, high-malpractice coastal metros (NJ, MA, CA metros) show lower nominal averages despite high demand, the classic "desirable metro discount," amplified here by malpractice (below).78

Urban against rural, where rural pays more. Rural and underserved areas generally pay more in nominal comp, driven by recruitment difficulty and scarcity, consistent with the Plains states topping the state rankings. A striking demand signal: 35% of US counties are "maternity care deserts" (no OB provider or birthing hospital), concentrating unmet demand and pay leverage in rural regions. Urban academic centers pay the least.89

Academic vs. community. From lowest to highest (Physician Side Gigs 2024): FQHC/nonprofit ~$296k · academic hospital ~$345k · group private practice ~$367k · non-academic hospital / PE-backed private group ~$402k · partner/owner ~$439k. AAMC's academic-faculty average of ~$312k corroborates the academic discount. Academics trade cash for research, teaching, and sometimes lifestyle.710 ⟳

How you're actually paid. Most generalists are salary or RVU-productivity; OB/GYN sits in the middle cluster on wRVUs (specific median $/wRVU wasn't disclosed in accessible sources; verify against MGMA). Total comp scales directly with delivery and surgical volume and with hours: 36–40 hrs ~$354k → 51–60 hrs ~$388k → 61–70 hrs ~$431k. Dropping obstetrics entirely (GYN-only, ~$289k vs. OB+GYN ~$376k) costs roughly $85k–$100k but sheds call and liability. Because L&D needs 24/7 coverage, hospitals commonly pay in-house OB call / laborist stipends on top of base. Locum tenens general OB/GYN runs $120–$200/hr (OB/GYN is the 3rd-highest specialty in locum demand and the 5th most-recruited overall).7116 ⟳

Malpractice, the field's defining cost. OB/GYNs pay among the highest medical-liability premiums in all of medicine, because birth-injury claims carry very long statutes of limitation (a child can sue years after delivery) and produce large verdicts.12 Rough annual premiums by state liability climate: low-liability (WI, MN, VA) ~$40k–$75k · moderate (CA, CO, TX, NC) ~$80k–$120k · high (FL, NY, IL, PA, NJ) ~$140k–$220k+.12 ⟳ The consequences ripple through everything above:

  • A $100k–$180k premium swing between a low-liability rural Midwest market and a high-liability coastal metro can erase much of a nominal salary difference, and helps explain why the highest survey averages appear in the Plains and South rather than on the coasts. Net take-home, not sticker salary, is what geography really moves.
  • Some physicians drop obstetrics to become GYN-only specifically to cut premiums, trading ~$85k–$100k of gross comp for a much lower liability load. High premiums are documented as driving OB/GYNs out of practice in the toughest markets.713
  • Longer-run context: OB premiums, while very high, have trended flat-to-downward since ~2003 off their early-2000s crisis peak.12 ⟳

Post-Dobbs geography, a live pay variable. Since Dobbs (2022), abortion law is now a real labor-market force. Ban states already face lower OB/GYN supply and may need to raise compensation and sign-on incentives to recruit into a shrinking applicant pool, which plausibly puts upward pressure on pay in restrictive and rural states as a scarcity premium, while simultaneously adding legal-exposure and career-risk concerns that no salary fully offsets. This dynamic is early; watch 2025–26 data.914 ⟳

Lifestyle & the "babies come at night" bargain

The appeal and the problem are the same sentence: you get to operate and keep patients for years, but obstetrics does not respect a calendar. Generalists commonly report 50–60+ clinical hours/week, and OB/GYN sits among the higher-hour specialties in Medscape data. Residency is heavier, with many programs near ACGME's 80-hour cap on L&D and night float.1

The hardest part is schedule control rather than the hour count. Traditional private-practice OB means unpredictable call: deliveries and obstetric emergencies at 3 a.m., on holidays, mid-recital, sometimes pulling you out of an elective case. That unpredictability is what physicians describe as the real toll.1

The field's biggest lifestyle innovation is a direct response: the rise of the OB hospitalist, or "laborist," a board-certified OB/GYN who works defined hospital shifts (often 12- or 24-hour blocks) covering L&D, triage, and emergencies with no office practice attached. It trades continuity and ownership for predictability (you're off when you're off), and often lower malpractice exposure. There are roughly 2,000 laborists across 300+ programs now, framed explicitly as a way to keep doing obstetrics instead of quitting it. More broadly, OB/GYN is fragmenting into "tracks" of gyn-only, office-only, laborist, or subspecialty, largely so newer physicians can control call and hours.1516

Lifestyle rating: 2/5. High variety and meaning, but among the lowest schedule control in medicine in the traditional model. The laborist/tracking routes are the escape valve that can raise this substantially.

Wellbeing — the part to take seriously

Burnout: OB/GYN is genuinely near the top. The AMA's 2025 Organizational Biopsy puts OB/GYN at 45.7% against a 41.9% all-physician average, fourth of the nine specialties it names as most burned out.17 Medscape's 2024 report reads the field the same direction on its own scale, ~53% against a 49% average, tied for second-highest of the twenty specialties it lists.18 ACOG's own analysis reaches the same conclusion. OB/GYNs burn out at roughly twice the rate of other working adults, with estimates of 40–75%, naming EHR burden, "too many patients in too little time," malpractice concerns, and poor work-life balance as drivers. Aggregate physician burnout eased through 2025, but OB/GYN has historically sat near the top year after year.181917 ⟳

Satisfaction & the money paradox: compensation satisfaction is low, with only ~42% of OB/GYNs feeling fairly paid (~58% feel underpaid, worse than the ~51% all-specialty average) despite a ~$352k–$372k income. Strikingly, ~88% said potential earnings had little or no influence on choosing the field, one of the more mission-driven specialties by that measure. Clean current "would choose the specialty again" figures aren't consistently published in free summaries, so treat any single number cautiously.2017 ⟳

Litigation stress, a defining wellbeing feature. Obstetrics carries among the highest malpractice exposure of any specialty; bad outcomes (especially birth injury / cerebral palsy claims) draw large awards, and the pediatric statute of limitations can run for years. ACOG publishes guidance specifically on coping with the psychological toll of being sued. Liability climate directly shapes where OB/GYNs practice and whether they keep doing obstetrics at all. It is a chronic background hum rather than an occasional event.2122

Career longevity. The high-call, high-litigation combination pushes many OB/GYNs to modify their careers over time: dropping OB for gyn-only in their 40s–50s, moving to laborist shifts, or subspecializing. The laborist model exists in large part to extend careers that unpredictable call would otherwise cut short. "Can you do full-scope OB at 55?" is a real question, and the field has built off-ramps precisely because the honest answer for many is "not the way you did it at 35."1516

Who's in the field (demographics)

  • Women: 64.1% of practicing OB/GYNs (AAMC, 2024 data), the second-highest of any specialty behind pediatrics, and up from 57.0% in 2017. Residents are a far larger super-majority at 88.2%, the highest of any core specialty. OB/GYN is one of the most female-predominant fields in medicine, a dramatic flip from a few decades ago.2324 ⟳
  • DO: 359 of the 1,636 positions filled in 2026, or 21.9%, counting DO seniors and DO graduates together. A substantial and growing share that makes OB/GYN comparatively DO-friendly.3 ⟳
  • IMG: 96 of the 1,636 positions filled in 2026, or 5.9%, counting US-citizen and non-US IMGs together. A much tighter entry point than fields like internal or family medicine.3 ⟳
  • URiM: AAMC does not disaggregate race/ethnicity for OB/GYN in its summary release; the overall active-physician workforce is ~5.7% Black and ~6.9% Hispanic. Per-specialty URiM for OB/GYN is limited data; verify against the AAMC Physician Specialty Data Report tables.24 ⟳

Culture, personality & the online stereotypes

Who gravitates here: people who want both the OR and longitudinal clinic, the "I won't give up operating, but I also want to know my patients for years" crowd. Strong pull for those drawn to women's-health advocacy and reproductive care, people comfortable in high-stakes, fast-moving situations (a normal delivery can turn emergent in minutes), and those who love the emotional highs of obstetrics. Post-Dobbs, it increasingly attracts people motivated by reproductive-rights advocacy. As always, plenty of people in the field do not fit any single mold.25

The stereotypes. Community caricatures rather than facts, each with an unfair edge:

  • "Type-A surgical personalities." Reality: the field spans intense surgeon-adjacent types and gentle continuity-clinic doctors, so the stereotype captures a slice rather than the whole.
  • "Malignant / brutal residency." OB/GYN training has an online reputation for grueling hours and, in some programs, tough hierarchy. This varies enormously by program and is unfair as a universal claim.
  • "Best of both worlds: surgery plus clinic." A recruiting-brochure line. True that you get variety; the flip side is you may master neither domain as deeply as a pure surgeon or pure clinician, which is exactly why the field is "tracking."
  • Gender dynamics. The field is now heavily female, and online discourse leans on this, sometimes to celebrate and sometimes to make lazy assumptions about culture or about male applicants. Treat as stereotype, not data.

What people say online (synthesized and paraphrased, not quotes): Across trainee and physician forums the picture is consistently two-sided: deeply rewarding work paired with a brutal lifestyle, especially in traditional private practice. Recurring themes: love of the OR and of delivering babies; frustration with call unpredictability; malpractice anxiety as a constant background hum; and, newer and increasingly loud, post-Dobbs concern about where you can safely and legally train and practice, with residents and students actively factoring state abortion law into rank lists and job searches. The laborist/shift model and "tracking" into gyn-only or office practice come up repeatedly as escape valves for reclaiming a life.

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

  • An obstetrician argues the OB hospitalist/laborist model is a genuine quality-of-life fix: defined shifts, no office, lower liability, and a way to keep practicing obstetrics instead of burning out and quitting.15
  • An OB/GYN describes OB/GYN fragmenting into narrow "tracks" driven by information overload, malpractice pressure, and younger physicians' demand for controllable call, warning that it helps burnout but threatens rural access and the comprehensive-care model.16
  • An obstetrician recounts finding her calling in obstetrics yet burning out to the point of resentment, and the toll of the "second shift" women physicians carry at home, advocating self-compassion and reinvention over abandoning medicine.26
  • ACOG attributes OB/GYN burnout to EHR load, over-packed schedules, litigation fear, and lost work-life balance, noting OB/GYNs burn out at roughly twice the rate of other adults.19

Why people choose it / why people leave

Why choose it: you get both the OR and longitudinal clinic, and few specialties give cutting and continuity together · the emotional payoff of obstetrics (healthy deliveries, mostly young/healthy patients, curative gyn surgery) · strong, stable pay (~$370k–$400k) with near-guaranteed job security · you leave residency a competent surgeon and a primary women's-health provider, a rare and portable combination · broad career optionality (generalist, laborist, gyn-only, six subspecialties) · a genuine sense of advocacy and mission.

Why leave or avoid it: unpredictable, sleep-wrecking call, among the worst schedule control in medicine unless you go laborist · top-tier burnout, 45.7% against a 41.9% all-physician average on the AMA's 2025 survey and near the top of every edition · the highest-tier malpractice/litigation environment, with chronic stress and steep premiums · post-Dobbs legal constraints on where you can train and practice, plus moral distress · a residency reputation for grueling hours and, in some programs, difficult culture.

Best fit if: you thrive on high-stakes, fast-changing situations and don't fall apart when a routine case turns emergent · you want to operate but can't give up clinic relationships · women's health and reproductive care are a mission for you · you're willing to reshape your career over time (laborist, gyn-only) to protect longevity.

Not for you if: you need a predictable, protected schedule and reliable sleep from day one · you have low tolerance for litigation risk and defensive-medicine stress · you're tied to a specific restrictive-law state and want to practice full-scope OB without legal constraints · you dislike either the OR or the clinic (you'll do a lot of both).

The FLI angle — OB/GYN for first-gen, low-income & immigrant students

Where OB/GYN fits FLI realities well:

  • Strong, durable income with guaranteed employability. ~$370k–$400k with near-certain job security is generational-wealth money, and demand for women's health isn't going anywhere. OB/GYN is the 5th most-recruited specialty in the country.
  • A rare, portable skill set. You finish residency a competent surgeon and a primary women's-health provider, a high-value combination you can take almost anywhere, including back to the kind of community you came from.
  • Mission fit is unusually direct. OB/GYN maps straight onto serving underserved and immigrant communities, because prenatal care, contraception, and women's health are exactly where access gaps are widest, and 35% of US counties are maternity care deserts. For an FLI student who wants their medicine to matter where they're from, this is one of the highest-leverage fields.
  • DO-friendly entry. At ~20% DO in the entering class, OB/GYN is a realistic target for many DO applicants (though IMG entry, at ~6%, is much tighter).

Risks to name honestly:

  • Brutal, unpredictable call is hardest on people without a cushion. The 3 a.m. deliveries and lack of schedule control are expensive to absorb when you're also supporting family or lack childcare backup; see the companion "breadwinner and pre-med" considerations.
  • Malpractice is a chronic financial and psychological load. Premiums of $40k–$220k+ and years-long liability tails are non-trivial stress, and they shape where the net pay actually is.
  • Post-Dobbs geography is the sharpest FLI issue. State abortion law now shapes where you can train and legally practice full-scope OB/GYN. If family, finances, or immigration status anchor you to a specific restrictive state, you may face limited or travel-based abortion training and legal constraints on care. In the 2024 cycle, OB/GYN residency applications to abortion-ban states fell ~6.7% YoY (vs +0.4% in non-restricted states), and ~17.6% of graduating residents changed their intended practice location after Dobbs. For a student who cannot freely relocate, this can force a real trade-off between geography and the training/practice you want.91427

Bottom line: Financially and mission-wise, OB/GYN is a powerful FLI choice: strong portable income, guaranteed demand, and a direct line to serving the communities with the widest access gaps. Go in clear-eyed about call intensity, litigation stress, and, uniquely to this field, the fact that state law now partly dictates where you can do this job. If you're geographically tied to a restrictive state, research its training landscape and legal environment before you commit.

Subspecialties & fellowships (also: the off-ramps)

None are required to practice as a generalist. Five are ABOG board-certified; MIGS is a recognized but non-ABOG fellowship. Several double as ways to reshape call/liability later in a career.28

  • Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM). High-risk pregnancy: maternal disease, fetal anomalies, complicated deliveries (3-yr fellowship; ABOG). Highest-paid subspecialty ($513k).
  • Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility (REI). IVF, fertility, hormonal disorders (3 yrs; ABOG). Among the most competitive and lucrative ($461k), often better lifestyle.
  • Gynecologic Oncology. Cancer surgery + chemotherapy for gynecologic malignancies (~3–4 yrs; ABOG). The most surgically intense, high-acuity track. Neither of the surveys behind the figures in this list has enough gyn-onc responses to publish a median; the one number available is the SGO's own 2025 member survey of 263 gynecologic oncologists, and it splits by sex — $380,000 median for women against $500,000 for men, a gap of 24%.
  • Urogynecology / Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery (URPS/FPMRS). Pelvic floor disorders, incontinence, prolapse (3 yrs; joint ABOG/ABU). Surgical, generally more controllable schedule ($402k).
  • Complex Family Planning. Contraception and abortion care including complex cases (~2 yrs; newest ABOG subspecialty). The subfield most directly reshaped by the post-Dobbs legal landscape.
  • Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery (MIGS/FMIGS). Advanced laparoscopic/robotic surgery for endometriosis, fibroids, complex benign disease (~2 yrs; AAGL, non-ABOG).
  • Pediatric & Adolescent Gynecology. Reproductive and gynecologic care for children and teens (fellowship or focused training).

Fun facts

  • OB/GYN is one of the most female-predominant specialties in medicine: 64.1% of practicing physicians and 88.2% of residents, a dramatic flip from a few decades ago.
  • It's a true surgeon-and-continuity-doctor hybrid, one of the very few fields that gives you the OR and a longitudinal patient panel you follow for years.
  • Obstetric malpractice claims can surface years after a birth, because the statute of limitations for injury to a minor often runs until the child reaches adulthood, a unique long-tail liability.
  • The OB hospitalist, or "laborist," is a real and growing career: ~2,000 physicians across 300+ programs, invented largely to give OB/GYNs a controllable schedule.
  • About 88% of OB/GYNs said money had little or no influence on choosing the field, one of the more mission-driven specialties by that measure.
  • The field is actively "tracking," fragmenting into gyn-only, office-only, laborist, and subspecialty patterns as a burnout-and-call survival strategy.
  • 35% of US counties are "maternity care deserts," and post-Dobbs migration is expected to widen those gaps.

Sources

Footnotes

  1. OB/GYN hours, "babies come at night" schedule reality, and surgical/clinic/L&D mix. University of Washington OB/GYN Residency FAQ (2024) (https://obgyn.uw.edu/education/residency/FAQ); Student Doctor Network, "OB/gyn resident lifestyle" thread (https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/ob-gyn-resident-lifestyle.1273263/). Medscape hours context via lifestyle reporting. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. OB/GYN residency length (4 yrs / 48 months), curriculum progression, and ABOG two-step (written Qualifying + oral Certifying) certification. ABOG "Get Certified" (https://www.abog.org/get-certified) and certification overview via ChallengerCME (2024/2025) (https://challengercme.com/blog/abog-obgyn-board-exam-how-to-prepare-and-pass); representative curricula: Baylor College of Medicine OB/GYN residency (https://www.bcm.edu/departments/obstetrics-and-gynecology/education/obstetrics-gynecology-residency/curriculum/rotations); Atrium Health PGY-4 (https://atriumhealth.org/education/graduate-medical-education/physician-residencies/obstetrics-and-gynecology/pgy-4-year). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. NRMP, Results and Data: 2026 Main Residency Match, May 2026, Table 2: Obstetrics-Gynecology 310 programs, 1,638 positions offered, 1,636 filled (99.9%), 2 unfilled, 2,240 applicants; of the positions filled, 1,119 went to US MD seniors and 62 to US MD graduates, 330 to DO seniors and 29 to DO graduates (359 in all, 21.9%), 51 to US-citizen IMGs and 45 to non-US IMGs (96 in all, 5.9%). https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Main_Match_Results_and_Data-2026.pdf Corrected 2026-08-17: this page ran on the 2025 edition — 295 programs, 1,587 positions, 1,586 filled, 99.9%, DO 19.8%, IMG 6.0% — every figure of which was exact for that cycle. The 2026 edition published in May 2026 and this page's review stamp is later than that, so the block and the two demographic bullets have moved. Nothing material moved with them: fill was 99.9% in both years, DO went from 19.8% to 20.1% on the offered-positions denominator the old bullet used, and the IMG share slipped from 6.0% to 5.9%. The bullets now name their denominator, because the DO share reads 20.1% against positions offered and 21.9% against positions filled and the page had never said which. Previous URL: https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Main_Match_Results_and_Data_20250529_FINAL.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. NRMP, NRMP and Obstetrics and Gynecology Matches (2024): "Only six categorical positions remained unfilled after the matching algorithm was processed. OB/GYN achieved a 99.6 percent fill rate in the 2024 Match," and OB/GYN is named among the specialties filling the highest share with US MD and DO seniors, at 90.7 percent; >99% filled for five consecutive years. https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/NRMP-OB-GYN-Matches.pdf . The categorical position count is from NRMP, Results and Data: 2025 Main Residency Match, whose five-year table gives OB/GYN 1,539 categorical positions offered and 1,533 filled in 2024, https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Main_Match_Results_and_Data_20250529_FINAL.pdf . Corrected 2026-08-17: this page and this footnote both put the 2024 figure at 1,636 positions, which made OB/GYN appear to shrink by 49 seats between 2024 and 2025 in the same bullet that says positions grew every year over 2015–2024. 1,636 is a data label at the 2017 end of the specialty report's ten-year chart, and it is also the number of positions FILLED in the 2026 Match, so it exists in NRMP data for a different year and a different quantity. The fill rate and the 90.7% were exact and are unchanged; only the count was wrong. The specialty report's own chart runs on a categorical-plus-preliminary basis and puts 2024 at 1,557 offered and 1,545 filled; this page uses the categorical series throughout, which is what the 2025 bullet above it uses. ↩

  5. NRMP, Charting Outcomes: Characteristics of U.S. MD Seniors, 2024 (Aug 2024): OB/GYN US MD-senior match rate 85.7%; Table OB-1, matched n=925 / unmatched n=149 — mean Step 2 CK 252 matched and 244 unmatched, mean contiguous ranks 12.3 and 7.2, mean abstracts/presentations/publications 9.0 and 6.8. Corrected 2026-08-17: the body carried 251 and 241. The matched figure was off by one and immaterial; the unmatched figure was off by three and widened the apparent gap from the real 8 points to 10, in the bullet a reader uses to judge their own scores. Every other figure in that bullet was exact against this table. https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Charting_Outcomes_MD_Seniors_2024-2.pdf ↩ ↩2

  6. BLS OEWS, Obstetricians and Gynecologists (SOC 29-1218), May 2025 mean annual wage $279,040 ($134.16/hr) on employment of 21,260, a W-2 floor, with a 10th percentile of $94,680, a median of $292,910 and a 90th of $437,300. State means from the same release put Louisiana $397,990, Utah $385,660 and Vermont $376,670 highest and Alabama $208,080 lowest among the 42 states that publish one. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wages — May 2025, Table 1 with the state cross-industry estimates (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ocwage_05152026.htm; state file at https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25st.zip). Updated 2026-08-18: this note carried the May 2024 mean of $281,130, and the page reported the BLS percentiles as unavailable and the series as capping top-earner reporting. The May 2025 release, published 2026-05-15, publishes the full ladder for this occupation, and the state list it supports no longer has Kentucky or Maryland at the top. Merritt Hawkins 2025 average starting offer ~$371,000 and locum rates $120–$200/hr, both via Barton Associates OB/GYN Salary Guide (https://www.bartonassociates.com/ob-gyn-physician-salary-guide/). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  7. Physician Side Gigs OB/GYN salary survey (mid-2024) — full range ~$200k–$1M, full-time median $342k / avg $375k, W-2 $368k vs partner $439k, hours→pay, GYN-only vs OB+GYN, employment-setting ladder, state highs/lows, gender gap. https://www.physiciansidegigs.com/average-obgyn-salary ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  8. MGMA 2024 Provider Compensation Data (via Panacea Financial) — median total comp $399,519; by-region and by-state medians. https://panaceafinancial.com/resources/what-is-the-average-ob-gyn-physician-salary/ ; MGMA source: https://www.mgma.com/data-report-provider-comp-2024 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  9. Commonwealth Fund (2024) — 35% of US counties are maternity care deserts; post-Dobbs application shift (−6.7% ban states vs +0.4%), 17.6% of graduating residents changed intended practice location. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2024/maternity-care-providers-and-trainees-are-leaving-states-abortion-restrictions-further ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. AAMC academic faculty average ~$312,000 (via White Coat Investor). https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/ob-gyn-salary/ ↩

  11. OB/GYN recruiting/locum demand (5th most-recruited, 3rd in locum demand) and RVU positioning. Doximity 2025 via Physician Side Gigs (https://www.physiciansidegigs.com/average-obgyn-salary); Doximity 2025 Physician Compensation Report (https://www.doximity.com/reports/physician-compensation-report/2025); Marit Health 2025 wRVUs (https://www.marithealth.com/posts/2025-wrvus-by-specialty-and-per-wrvu). On Marit Health: it publishes a panel of self-reported physician salaries, and displays MGMA and AMGA benchmarks beside them that are masked unless you create an account. The figure quoted here comes from the self-reported panel, not from either benchmark. Read it as crowd data: unweighted, of unstated sample size, and directional. ↩

  12. OB/GYN malpractice premiums among highest in medicine; premium ranges by state liability climate; long-tail birth-injury liability; flat-to-downward trend since ~2003. Cunningham Group (year unspecified — verify vintage). https://www.cunninghamgroupins.com/malpractice-insurance-for-doctors/obgyn/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  13. High premiums driving OB/GYNs out of practice in the toughest markets. Risk & Insurance. https://riskandinsurance.com/high-medical-malpractice-premiums-are-driving-ob-gyns-out-of-the-business-how-will-women-cope/ ↩

  14. Health Affairs Scholar (2024) — lower OB/GYN supply in abortion-ban states post-Dobbs; ban-state list; no statistically significant additional divergence in first two years (effects "take years to develop"). https://academic.oup.com/healthaffairsscholar/article/2/12/qxae162/7909263 ; AAMC, "Fallout of Dobbs on the field of OB/GYN" (https://www.aamc.org/news/fallout-dobbs-field-ob-gyn); AAMC post-Dobbs application data (https://www.aamc.org/about-us/mission-areas/clinical-care/post-dobbs-2024). ↩ ↩2

  15. Robert Olson, MD — Doximity Op-Med, "The Birth of a New Option for Ob-Gyns: 'Laborists'" — ~2,000 laborists across 300+ programs; defined shifts, no office, lower liability. https://opmed.doximity.com/articles/the-birth-of-a-new-option-for-ob-gyns-laborists-651ed98d-86d9-453f-8923-4c8652962850 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  16. Valerie A. Jones, MD — Doximity Op-Med, "A Career in Ob/Gyn Is Going Through a Metamorphosis" — the "tracking"/fragmentation trend and its trade-offs. https://opmed.doximity.com/articles/a-career-in-ob-gyn-is-going-through-a-metamorphosis ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  17. Burnout, AMA. The Organizational Biopsy 2025 (~19,000 physician responses, 106 health systems, 38 states) puts Obstetrics and gynecology at 45.7% against a 41.9% all-physician average, fourth of the nine specialties it names as most burned out, https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/physician-health/these-9-physician-specialties-report-highest-burnout-rates. Corrected 2026-08-17: the dashboard, the body and the wellbeing figure now lead with the AMA row rather than Medscape's ~53%, and the "tied 2nd/3rd" rank is stated inside Medscape's own sentence rather than carried across instruments. The two baselines are seven points apart and never share a sentence. Aggregate physician burnout fell to ~42% in 2025 (AMA via Fierce Healthcare). https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/physician-burnout-falls-third-year-2025-419-american-medical-association ; compensation satisfaction (~42% feel fairly paid) via Weatherby summary of Medscape 2024 (https://weatherbyhealthcare.com/blog/ob-gyn-salary). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  18. Medscape Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2024 — OB/GYN ~53%, tied 2nd-highest (EM 63%, Oncology 53%, Peds 51%). Via White Coat Investor (https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/medical-specialties-most-burned-out/) and Medscape (https://www.medscape.com/sites/public/lifestyle/2024). ⟳ ↩ ↩2

  19. ACOG, "Why Ob-Gyns Are Burning Out" (2019, citing 2017 data) — burnout ~twice the rate of other adults (40–75%); EHR, patient volume, malpractice, work-life balance as drivers. https://www.acog.org/news/news-articles/2019/10/why-ob-gyns-are-burning-out ↩ ↩2

  20. OB/GYN compensation satisfaction (~42% feel fairly paid / ~58% underpaid) and ~88% say money had little/no influence on specialty choice; ~$352k (2023 earnings). Weatherby Healthcare summary of Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2024 (https://weatherbyhealthcare.com/blog/ob-gyn-salary); White Coat Investor (https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/ob-gyn-salary/). ↩

  21. ACOG, "Coping With the Stress of Medical Professional Liability Litigation" (2013) — the psychological toll of being sued. https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2013/01/coping-with-the-stress-of-medical-professional-liability-litigation ↩

  22. Contemporary OB/GYN, "The best and worst states for ob/gyn practice: a professional liability perspective." https://www.contemporaryobgyn.net/view/best-and-worst-states-obgyn-practice-professional-liability-perspective ↩

  23. OB/GYN 64.1% women among active physicians (2024 data; 60.5% in 2021, 57.0% in 2017). AAMC, 2025 Key Findings, https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/data/2025-key-findings. Residents 5,450 of 6,178, or 88.2%: ACGME, Data Resource Book, Academic Year 2024-2025, Table C.21, https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/publicationsbooks/2024-2025_acgme_databook_document.pdf. Corrected 2026-08-13: this page carried the 2021 figure of 60.5% as current, and gave the resident share as "commonly cited around ~85%" when ACGME publishes it. ↩

  24. All-specialty women ~38% and OB/GYN race/ethnicity context (workforce ~5.7% Black, ~6.9% Hispanic; not disaggregated by specialty). AAMC "What's your specialty?" (2022). https://www.aamc.org/news/what-s-your-specialty-new-data-show-choices-america-s-doctors-gender-race-and-age ↩ ↩2

  25. OB/GYN culture and who-gravitates — synthesized from the OB/GYN lifestyle & culture research (UW Residency FAQ, SDN, r/obgyn community synthesis) and Op-Med/ACOG voices below. ↩

  26. Beverly Joyce, MD — KevinMD, "From OB/GYN to self-compassion" (2024). https://www.kevinmd.com/2024/02/from-ob-gyn-to-self-compassion-a-physicians-tale-of-transformation.html ↩

  27. AAMC, "States With Abortion Bans See Continued Decrease in U.S. MD Senior Residency Applicants" (May 2024) — OB/GYN applicants to ban states −6.7% vs +0.4%; all-specialty −4.2% vs −0.6%. https://www.aamc.org/about-us/mission-areas/clinical-care/post-dobbs-2024 ; ACOG "Issue Brief: Training and Workforce after Dobbs" (https://www.acog.org/advocacy/abortion-is-essential/trending-issues/issue-brief-training-and-workforce-after-dobbs). ↩

  28. OB/GYN subspecialties/fellowships, lengths, ABOG vs non-ABOG status, and subspecialty pay. ABOG "Get Certified / Specialty Certification" (https://www.abog.org/get-certified/specialty-certification); subspecialty pay (MFM ~$513k, REI ~$461k, Urogyn ~$402k) via Physician Side Gigs (https://www.physiciansidegigs.com/average-obgyn-salary); Gyn-Onc (SGO 2025 member survey, n=263, female median $380,000 / male median $500,000, a 24% gap) via Barton (https://www.bartonassociates.com/ob-gyn-physician-salary-guide/). Corrected 2026-08-17: the gyn-onc bullet carried a range of ~$450k–$500k that neither cited source publishes. Physician Side Gigs states in as many words that "the following subspecialties or categories did not have enough data points to populate aggregate data for: Obstetrics only, Gynecological oncology," and Barton's only gyn-onc figures are the SGO pair, which this footnote already named. The invented $450,000 floor also averaged away the largest sex gap either source reports, so the split now appears in the body rather than only here. Every other figure in the same list is exact against Physician Side Gigs: MFM $513,000, REI $461,000, urogynecology $402,000. ↩

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