The Top 10 Medical Specialties for 2020-2021
The demand for medical specialists has seen significant fluctuations in recent months, due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic that started in early 2020. Many physicians and advanced practitioners have been impacted by the ebb and flow of demand related to virus surges, service interruptions, vaccine rollouts and ever-changing federal, state and local regulations.
So how was physician recruitment affected during the first full year of the pandemic? A new report provides some answers. AMN Healthcare tracks annual recruiting trends including the medical specialties in demand, with their starting salaries, bonuses and other incentives offered to physicians and advanced practitioner candidates.
Now in its 28th year, the 2021 Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives analyzed 2,458 recruiting assignments from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.
This national sample shows that nurse practitioners were the most requested clinicians for the first time in the Review’s history, followed by family practice physicians. Before this year, family physicians had topped the annual list of medical specialties in demand for 14 years running.
The breakdown in requests for medical practitioners in 2020/2021:
- 18 percent of search assignments were for advanced practitioners, representing the highest percentage ever;
- 18 percent were for primary care physicians; and
- 64 percent were for physician specialists
The Top 10 recruited medical specialties
The following chart shows the top medical specialties by search requests conducted by AMN Healthcare, from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021, compared to the same period in the previous year.
| Top Medical Specialties Recruited | 2020/2021 Searches | 2019/2020 Searches | Year over Year Change | 2020/2021 Average Salary Offer* |
| 1. Nurse Practitioner | 335 | 270 | +24.1% | $140,000 |
| 2. Family Medicine | 284 | 448 | -36.6% | $243,000 |
| 3. Radiology | 136 | 163 | -16.6% | $401,000 |
| 4. Psychiatry | 124 | 182 | -31.9% | $279,000 |
| 5. Internal Medicine | 117 | 146 | -19.9% | $244,000 |
| 6. OB/GYN | 108 | 122 | -11.5% | $291,000 |
| 7. Anesthesiology | 78 | 72 | +8.3% | $367,000 |
| 8. Hematology/Oncology | 74 | 91 | -18.7% | $385,000 |
| 9. Gastroenterology | 67 | 65 | +3.1% | $453,000 |
| 10. CRNA | 64 | 71 | -9.9% | $222,000 |
*These average salaries for the top 10 specialty searches conducted by AMN Healthcare represent starting salaries or guaranteed income only; these amounts do not include bonuses or benefits.
To learn more about the salary and incentive packages offered to physicians and advanced practitioners in various workplace settings—including bonuses, relocation packages, student loan repayment and other elements of compensation—download a copy of the 2021 Review.
This comprehensive report provides extensive details on the demand for the top 20 medical specialties, with comparisons to previous years, and a number of trends that are impacting the healthcare workforce.
