Hospice and Palliative Care Physician
Impact: Relief of suffering, dignified end-of-life care, and support for patients and families during serious illness
Provide expert symptom management, goals-of-care counseling, and comfort-focused medical care for patients with serious illness, guiding patients and families through end-of-life decisions with compassion and clinical expertise.
What the day looks like
- People interaction
- Extensive
- Team vs solo
- 70% Team / 30% Solo
- Client facing
- Always
- Impact visibility
- High
- Travel
- 10 to 20% for home hospice visits
- Schedule flexibility
- Moderate
- Remote work
- Limited Remote
- Typical work hours
- 45 to 55 hours/week
- Stress level
- High
At a glance
- Median salary
- $240,000
- Entry-level
- $170,000 - $210,000
- Senior
- $310,000+
- Growth by 2033
- 18% (much faster than average; growing recognition of palliative care value)
- Demand
- Growing Fast
- Freelance potential
- Low
- Salary growth potential
- Moderate, with 50 to 80% growth; academic and leadership roles command premium compensation
- Typical student debt
- $150,000 - $300,000
Skills you'll use
Hard skills
- Pain & Symptom Management
- Goals-of-Care Communication
- Opioid Prescribing & Titration
- Advance Directive Counseling
- Palliative Sedation Protocols
Soft skills
- Empathy
- Difficult Conversation Facilitation
- Grief Support
- Interdisciplinary Collaboration
- Resilience
Technical complexity: Very High
How to get there
- Minimum education
- Doctoral or Professional Degree
- Licensing
- Yes
- Years to mid-career
- 8 to 12 years
- Years to senior
- 15 to 20 years
- Career switching
- Hard
Where this career leads
How people arrive here
Where you can go from here
Typical progression
- Medical Student > Resident > Palliative Care Fellow > Attending Palliative Care Physician > Medical Director
Future outlook
- Automation probability
- 8% very low risk; goals-of-care conversations and end-of-life guidance are irreplaceable human functions
- AI disruption risk
- Low
- Demand trend
- Growing Fast
How people feel about it
- Overall satisfaction
- 8.5/10
- Meaning
- 9.7/10
- Work-life balance
- 7/10
- Prestige
- 8.8/10
- Social perception
- Very High