You teach surgery to medical students, residents, or fellows — covering surgical technique, perioperative care, and the clinical reasoning surgical practice requires. Half academic faculty, half practicing or recently practicing surgeon.
Surgery Teacher pay typically runs $74K–$176K at this level, and jobs in this field are projected to grow 17% through 2034.
Most days tend to involve a blend of operating room teaching, clinic supervision, didactic teaching, and continued surgical practice — walking residents through cases in the OR, supervising clinics and rounds, and continuing your own surgical practice. You'll often spend part of the time on scholarly work that academic surgery expects.
The harder part is often the cumulative demand of carrying clinical surgery alongside teaching and scholarship — surgical volume drives both training quality and personal practice, and the workload is significant. You'll typically work with residents whose readiness develops over years, where supervision is intense and the standards uncompromising.
People who tend to thrive here are technically expert, scholarly, and willing to invest in the long arc of training surgeons. The trade-off is the salary differential between academic and private surgical practice and the cumulative workload. If you find satisfaction in shaping the next generation of surgeons, the work can carry meaning that pure clinical practice doesn't.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
You teach surgery to medical students, residents, or fellows — covering surgical technique, perioperative care, and the clinical reasoning surgical practice requires. Half academic faculty, half practicing or recently practicing surgeon.
Median pay for a Surgery Teacher is about $106K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $52K to $208K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Reading Comprehension, Speaking, Instructing, Writing, and Active Listening.
Most people in this role hold a master's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 17.3% through 2034, with roughly 229,720 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include First Aid Teacher, Infant Care Teacher, and Childbirth Teacher.
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