The Happiest Doctors by Specialty in 2025

Allergists and immunologists top the list as the most optimistic specialists, while emergency medicine specialists come last.

Medscape’s Physician Mental Health and Well-Being Report 2025 surveyed more than 5,700 physicians in 29 specialties over 2024. While an average of 76% of physicians across specialties believed happiness and balance were possible, responses from individual specialties ranged from 94% to 63%.

Among some of the most highly commented challenges were feelings of burnout, depression, and difficulty making time for personal priorities.

Medscape measured happiness by asking physicians whether doctors in their specialty could be happy and well-balanced.

Doctors in the following fields had the highest rates of agreeing that happiness in their specialty was possible:

1. Allergy and immunology: 94%
2. Pathology: 88%
3. Dermatology: 87%
4. Public health and preventive medicine: 87%
5. Psychiatry: 87%
6. Ophthalmology: 84%
7. Otolaryngology: 81%
8. Orthopedics and orthopedic surgery: 81%
9. Physical medicine and rehabilitation: 80%
10. Anesthesiology: 79%
11. Gastroenterology: 79%

Many specialties ranking highly this year have a longer-standing pattern of relative happiness compared to their counterparts.

Medscape’s Family Physician Lifestyle, Happiness & Burnout Report 2023 asked physicians in each specialty to confirm whether they were “very happy” or “happy” in their personal lives. Specialties that ranked in the top ten of both 2023’s and 2025’s lists included:

• pathology
• dermatology
• public health and preventive medicine
• ophthalmology
• otolaryngology
• orthopedics and orthopedic surgery
• physical medicine and rehabilitation
• gastroenterology

Meanwhile, this year anesthesiologists, psychiatrists, and allergists and immunologists appear to have risen after ranking in the lowest half of the cohort in 2023. In fact, now the most optimistic specialty in 2025, allergy and immunology ranked as the fifth least happy specialty in 2023, climbing 22 places.

Conversely, physicians in the following specialties had the lowest rates of agreeing that happiness in their areas was possible:

1. Emergency medicine: 63%
2. Infectious diseases: 63%
3. Critical care: 65%
4. Internal medicine: 66%
5. Rheumatology: 67%
6. Neurology: 68%
7. General surgery: 68%
8. Oncology and hematology: 68%
9. OB-GYN: 68%
10. Nephrology: 69%
11. Pulmonary medicine: 69%

These rates of optimism are similar to 2023’s measures, with only general surgery newly entering the 10 least-happy specialties in 2025. Specialties that have seen a relative improvement in outlook since 2023 compared to their counterparts include allergy and immunology, cardiology, and family medicine.

The Medscape report examined several lifestyle factors related to physician happiness at work and at home, including personal life satisfaction, generational differences, and more.

Physicians’ feedback about their personal lives signalled frequent desire for improvements. In fact, 63% of physicians stated they would accept a pay cut for better work-life balance.

Doctors also reported whether key aspects of their personal lives more often improved, stayed the same, or worsened within the past 3 years of being in the profession:

• Overall happiness: 32% reported a worsening, 24% reported improvements
• Work-life balance: 36% reported a worsening, 25% reported improvements
• Family relationships: 19% reported a worsening, 22% reported improvements
• Friendships: 26% reported a worsening, 16% reported improvements

As another sign of personal relationships being a key driver of balance and well-being, 78% of female physicians and 73% of their male colleagues reported that having more personal and family time was “very important.”

Around 83% of physicians reported living with a partner or being married, while 82% of married doctors described their relationship as “good” or “very good.”

Around 30% of millennial physicians, aged 28 to 43, reported that their happiness had improved within the past 3 years. Earlier generations were more likely to state that their happiness lowered by 8 percent points.

However, millennials were also more likely to report burnout or depression than physicians from previous generations.

More research is needed to understand whether these differences can be attributed to factors related to time the profession, such as career stage, or features unique to each generation.

This year’s survey reported that 29% of physicians felt burned out, 6% felt depressed, and 18% felt both burned out and depressed. Still, Medscape notes a slight overall improvement in burnout across its past two surveys, while depression rates stay high.

Reported rates of burnout and depression also highlight a gender gap in physician happiness, with female physicians more likely to report burnout or depression.

As you likely tell your patients, physical activity is known to improve mood and resilience as well as physical health. Survey data suggests that many physicians do take their own advice, with almost 38% of doctors reporting working out 4 times per week or more.

A majority of physicians also reported increasing the frequency and/or duration of their physical activity sessions.

Still, around 29% of physicians stated they were physically active once a week or less.

Other challenges to happiness and balance physicians cited this year and in Medscape’s 2024 report included:

• decreased vacation time 
• the COVID-19 pandemic
• higher rates of low mood and clinical depression
• world issues

Among physicians surveyed for the Medscape Physician Mental Health & Well-Being Report 2025, the specialists who were most likely to agree that doctors in their specialty can be happy and well-balanced included:

• allergists and immunologists
• pathologists
• dermatologists
• public health and preventive medicine specialists
• psychiatrists

Key factors informing physician happiness included work-life balance, relationships, and self-care strategies such as exercise.