October 28, 2025
Did you know that the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has gathered national data on the average compensation of American family physicians? It’s called the Career Benchmark Dashboard. This first-of-its-kind tool displays national data on compensation, job satisfaction, benefits, and other topics for any AAFP members who want to search through them
Another good word to understand this tool is map. The dashboard maps the way Family Medicine careers happen right now. It can also map how they may exist in the future. By seeing how your fellow family physicians work, you can navigate your own work for today and tomorrow. You can make your own map from all that the Dashboard offers. It will help you prepare for and during your career with solid data to help support your career decisions.
Here’s how you can start mapping out your next steps: When you visit the Dashboard, you need to explore the data to move through its results. Fortunately, every section of the Dashboard has a clickable button called “Explore.” Once you click to explore, you can customize your results and adjust the map you need to see for your next career step.
Want to understand the demographics of family physicians in the AAFP? Just inside North Carolina? Or how about work satisfaction in North Carolina family physicians compared to that of family physicians around the country? All you need to do is customize. There are many factors to choose from: clinical settings, years since residency, geographic location, and others. They all help you choose what you find on your map.
I access the Dashboard results whenever I can. Its customization features help me map out what NCAFP members already enjoy in your workplaces and what you still need. Here’s a quick look at some of those patterns:*
*Results based on 287 North Carolina survey respondents and over 7,000 national survey respondents.
There are many more results I could’ve shared. But these three give a brief look into three NCAFP priorities: welcoming all family physicians, supporting physician well-being and satisfaction, and supporting family physicians in medical leadership. And a brief look helps us understand what you need to flourish in your workplace and your career.
We just need you to complete a short survey!
If you tell us about your workplace, satisfaction, and compensation, the newest version of the Dashboard will be more accurate and more helpful for your fellow physicians. It’s an anonymous survey that only takes 10 minutes to complete. It will help the Academy compile data that will provide a robust and accurate picture of how family physicians work — to then help increase their compensation and satisfaction. That’s the end game of the dashboard. And that’s why we recommend that you complete the survey!
Please complete it as soon as you can. Help us map out a better opportunity for physicians practicing Family Medicine through this updated Dashboard. That way, you can map out a better future for your career and for your colleagues!
The North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians, Inc. (NCAFP) is a nonprofit professional association headquartered in Raleigh which represents over 4,300 family physicians, family medicine residents, and medical students across the state. It is the largest medical specialty association in North Carolina and is a constituent chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians, based in Leadwood, KS.
*This article first appeared in the fall issue of The North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians.
