Recruiting a general surgeon.

What does a general surgeon earn?

Ranked among the states and the District of Columbia where BLS publishes both the mean wage and the employment figure; 19 of the 51 are left out because BLS withholds or top-codes a figure or has no row. The general surgery salary page has every state, the metro areas and BLS’s caveats.

The figures above are for BLS's Surgeons, All Other, a group that includes general surgeons and every other surgical specialty without its own occupation: a mean of $373,930 (BLS, May 2025 release) a year, a median of $414,010 (BLS, May 2025 release) and about 25,140 (BLS, May 2025 release) employed. They are the closest federal series to general surgery, not a measure of it alone.

Hospital offers to general surgeons usually combine a salary or production pay with a call stipend, and the call frequency matters to candidates as much as the salary. Rural positions often add a signing bonus, housing help or loan repayment from a state program.

Where do general surgeons look for jobs?

Where new hires come from

New hires come from residency or after a fellowship

Who employs them

Community and rural hospitals, hospital-employed surgical groups, private surgical practices, academic acute care surgery services and multispecialty groups.

Who you compete with for candidates

Fellowships in colorectal, vascular, surgical oncology, trauma and other fields that draw residents away, and urban systems that offer a lighter call schedule.

Surgery residency is long, and residents decide on fellowship partway through. Those who choose general practice often want a community where they can do a broad mix of cases, and they talk to hospitals in their final year.

Residents trained in programs with rural tracks are the most likely to consider a small hospital, which makes those programs worth knowing.

Every board’s listing, with its posting lengths and how CV access is sold, is in the job board directory; what a physician job posting costs compares them.

The locum agency directory has each agency’s states, malpractice coverage and physician pay where it states them.

What does an open general surgery position cost?

What the calculator has for general surgery

• Revenue one physician brings in: $2,707,317 a year (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019)
• Locum pay: $150 to $200 an hour (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025)
• First-year pay: $373,930 a year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025)
• Contingency agency fee: 20 to 30% of first-year pay (estimate, MedStaff Nationwide, 2026)

The calculator carries $2,707,317 (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019) a year to an affiliated hospital per general surgeon, a survey figure that counts surgical admissions and the services around them. Even more than revenue, a vacancy costs coverage: emergency surgical patients transferred out, and a hospital that cannot promise surgical backup.

Locum general surgeons are common, at $150 to $200 (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025) an hour in physician pay, and many small hospitals cover call with them for long stretches. That keeps the service open, but it is expensive and it rarely builds the referral base a permanent surgeon does.

Open the calculator with general surgery chosen

Which recruiting channels work for general surgery?

The call schedule decides most searches. Hospitals that can offer call shared among several surgeons, with locum help on weekends, fill positions that a lone-surgeon model cannot.

Questions to ask

• How many surgeons share emergency call, and how often would the new one take it?
• What case mix can a general surgeon expect, including endoscopy?
• Is there a state loan repayment or visa waiver option for this site?
• How long have locums covered the service, and what has it cost?

Which rules bite general surgery recruiting?

Hospitals pay general surgeons for call and sometimes guarantee their income, and those payments sit squarely under the federal referral laws.

Every federal rule this site cites, grouped by what a practice or recruiter is doing, is on the federal rules page. For the contract itself (pay models, tail coverage, restrictive covenants), read the physician employment contract, clause by clause. These notes describe the rules and cite them; they are not legal advice for a particular offer or contract.