Medicine

Types of Degrees Medicine Majors Are Getting

The following table lists how many medicine graduations there were for each degree level during the last year for which data was available.

Education Level	Number of Grads
Doctor’s Degree	29,168
Graduate Certificate	38

What Medicine Majors Need to Know

O*NET surveyed people in occupations related to medicine and asked them what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important for their jobs. The responses were rated on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being most important.

Knowledge Areas for Medicine Majors

Medicine majors often go into careers in which the following knowledge areas are important:

• Medicine and Dentistry - Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Biology - Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.

Skills for Medicine Majors

The following list of skills has been highlighted as some of the most essential for careers related to medicine:

• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
• Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
• Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.

Abilities for Medicine Majors

A major in medicine will prepare for your careers in which the following abilities are important:

• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).

What Can You Do With a Medicine Major?

Below is a list of occupations associated with medicine:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
Family and General Practitioners	14.3%	$201,100
Physicians and Surgeons	11.4%	$200,890

Amount of Education Required for Careers Related to Medicine

Some careers associated with medicine require an advanced degree while some may not even require a bachelor’s. Whatever the case may be, pursuing more education usually means that more career options will be available to you.

Find out what the typical degree level is for medicine careers below.

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
Post-Master’s Certificate - awarded for completion of an organized program of study; designed for people who have completed a Master’s degree but do not meet the requirements of academic degrees at the doctoral level.	3.5%
Doctoral Degree	65.4%
Post-Doctoral Training	31.1%

Online Medicine Programs

The following table lists the number of programs by degree level, along with how many schools offered online courses in the field.

Degree Level	Colleges Offering Programs	Colleges Offering Online Classes
Certificate (Less Than 1 Year)	0	0
Certificate (1-2 years)	0	0
Certificate (2-4 Years)	0	0
Associate’s Degree	0	0
Bachelor’s Degree	0	0
Post-Baccalaureate	0	0
Master’s Degree	0	0
Post-Master’s	4	0
Doctor’s Degree (Research)	1	0
Doctor’s Degree (Professional Practice)	198	0
Doctor’s Degree (Other)	0	0

Majors Related to Medicine

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to medicine.

Major	Number of Grads
Nursing	308,114
Practical Nursing & Nursing Assistants	88,809
Allied Health Professions	85,413
Health & Medical Administrative Services	85,302
Allied Health & Medical Assisting Services	79,189
Public Health	42,551
Health Sciences & Services	35,887
Mental & Social Health Services	31,550
Rehabilitation & Therapeutic Professions	29,934
Dental Support Services	25,040
Communication Sciences	23,288
Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science	19,017
Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Sciences	18,729
Somatic Bodywork & Therapeutic Services	10,516
Health/Medical Prep Programs	9,413
Other Health Professions	7,387
Dentistry	6,961
Dietetics & Clinical Nutrition Services	5,644
Bioethics/Medical Ethics	5,056
Alternative Medicine & Systems	3,431
Chiropractic	2,698
Medical Illustration & Informatics	2,689
Health Aids/Attendants/Orderlies	2,244
Advanced Dentistry & Oral Sciences	1,845
Optometry	1,789
Medical Science	1,090
Ophthalmic & Optometric Support Services	760
Movement & Mind-Body Therapies	468
Alternative Medical Support Services	136
Energy & Biologically Based Therapies	116

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• College Scorecard
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers First Quarter 2020

More about our data sources and methodologies.