After a survey of 800 physicians in the middle of their careers, it was found that the annual salary difference between men and women was about $12,000, which means women are making $360,000 less than men during a 30-year career. To get the fairest comparison, the study took into account work hours, academic titles medical specialties, age and other factors that influence salaries, but even after all of this, there was still a significant gap.

"The gender pay disparity we found in this highly talented and select group of physicians was sobering," says lead study author Reshma Jagsi, M.D., D.Phil., associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Michigan Medical School, in a press release.

Gender discrimination is a subject that will probably come to the minds of many, but discrimination does not seem to be a likely cause of this huge financial gap. The Paycheck Fairness Act is legislation being considered by the United States Congress to expand the possibility of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Fair Labor Standards Act. This is part of an effort to address male-female income disparity in the U.S. and just last year, President Barack Obama said that he will continue to fight for the goals in the Paycheck Fairness Act. Unfortunately, last week the Senate failed to secure the 60 votes needed to advance the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have required employers to demonstrate that any salary differences between men and women doing the same work are not gender-related.  

 "With increased participation of women in medicine, I suspect that conscious discrimination is probably less likely to be a robust explanation for much of the differences in salary," Dr. Reshma Jagsi, a radiation oncologist at the University of Michigan Health System said in an interview on ABCnews. "Instead, I think that an important reason for the difference may be unconscious gender bias."

"For all we know, women are paid less in part because they don't negotiate as assertively as men, or because their spouse's jobs make it harder for them to entertain competing job offer," Dr. Peter Ubel, a professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and Sanford School of Public Policy said in a Science Daily article. "A person's salary should not depend upon whether they have a Y chromosome."

According to Dr. Gayatri Devi, president of the American Medical Women's Association, "over the last decade, even the last quarter century, there has been a huge increase in the number of women physicians."

"When I refer a patient to another doctor, I say, 'He or she,' because I can no longer make the assumption the doctor is going to be male," Devi said.

Devi also stated that "a lot more advocacy needs to be done in this area." It's safe to say that everyone will agree with this. Medical school graduates can accumulate up to a quarter of a million dollars of debt from their training, and many doctors are stuck paying back their loans during the course of their careers.

According to the American Medical Student Association, medical education debt is 4.5 times as high in 2003 as it was in 1984, growing well beyond the consumer price index; and it is estimated that the median debt burden for graduates of public medical institutions has risen to over $119,000 while that for private school graduates has increased to nearly $150,000.

"Nevertheless, whatever the reason for the salary disparity, academic medical centers should work to pay more fairly," Dr. Peter Ubel, a professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and Sanford School of Public Policy said.