A big point people often forget when comparing doctors' s salaries to other fields: physicians are expected to cover a large number of their own work-related costs, like continuing education, insurance, or even medical equipment and (sometimes) overhead like office space. Because physicians almost always pay AMT, these work-related expenses are not tax-deductible.

$250,000 sounds like a lot, but it's really not once you take into account how much of that goes towards insurance, licensing fees, equipment, supplies, and all your normal business expenses. (The article linked says that this is "even after malpractice insurance and other expenses", but that's clearly not what the underlying source data represents.)