Physicians, Pathologists

Low Risk
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Explore safer careers (4)

Lower estimated automation risk

Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists
12% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Higher growth More jobs
9.5 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Directly reuses disease diagnosis, lab evidence, study design, tissue findings, literature review, and medical writing.

Health Specialties Teachers, Postsecondary
10% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Higher growth More jobs
11.1 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Applies pathology expertise, case teaching, lab methods, diagnostics, research literature, assessment, and clinical mentoring.

Medical and Health Services Managers
10% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Higher growth More jobs
10.6 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Fits lab leaders using clinical operations, quality metrics, budgets, compliance, staffing, patient safety, and process control.

Epidemiologists
9% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Higher growth
11.8 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Fits pathologists with population or disease-surveillance interests using diagnosis patterns, outcomes, data, and prevention evidence.

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Occupation snapshot

What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
5.7/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

21% (Low Risk)

Low Risk (21-40%): This occupation has a lower risk of full replacement by AI, software, or robotic systems. Some tasks may be automated or assisted, but the role usually still relies on human judgement, communication, responsibility, physical adaptability, or practical decision-making.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Decision-making and problem solving

Very important
Why this matters
Analyze information, weigh tradeoffs, and choose the best solution—especially when situations are ambiguous, high-stakes, or have real-world consequences.
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Active learning

Very important
Why this matters
Keeps learning from new information and applying it to make better decisions now and in the future, especially when situations change.
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Assisting and caring for others

Quite important
Why this matters
Provide hands-on help, emotional support, or personal care to people—work that depends on empathy, trust, and responding to individual needs in the moment.
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Thinking creatively

Quite important
Why this matters
Coming up with original ideas and designs—creating new concepts, products, systems, or artistic work. This kind of open-ended invention and taste-based judgment is harder to automate end-to-end than routine, rule-based tasks.
Jobs that also use this strength

Managing and developing people

Quite important
Why this matters
Motivate, coach, and direct others, and make hiring and staffing decisions. These people-focused responsibilities rely on judgment, trust, and interpersonal skill and are harder to replace end-to-end with automation.
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Show 5 more strengths

Social perceptiveness

Quite important
Why this matters
Noticing others’ emotions and reactions in the moment and adjusting what you say or do based on why they’re responding that way.
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Persuasion

Quite important
Why this matters
Influencing people to change their minds or behavior through conversation, trust, and negotiation.
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Communicating with people outside the organization

Quite important
Why this matters
Represents the organization to customers, the public, or government—handling questions, concerns, and relationship-building through conversations, writing, calls, or email.
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Consulting and advising others

Quite important
Why this matters
Provide guidance and expert advice to managers or teams on technical, system, or process decisions—explaining options, tradeoffs, and recommended actions.
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Education and training expertise

Quite important
Why this matters
Designing and delivering instruction—adapting lessons to different learners and measuring whether training actually works.
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What users think

Based on 114 votes

35% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 21% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Physicians, Pathologists will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

Based on user votes over time

View sentiment trend

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

Moderately paid relative to other professions

In Unknown, the mean annual wage for Physicians, Pathologists was Unknown (Unknown per hour).

View wage trend

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Physicians, Pathologists' job openings is expected to rise 4.2% by 2034

View employment trend

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Volume

Significantly lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 11,800 people employed as 'Physicians, Pathologists' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 13 thousand people are employed as 'Physicians, Pathologists'.

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What people are saying (1)

Jeffery (Moderate)
02 Feb 2025 17:43
physicians mainly diagnose illnesses, which is an algorithm in of itself. Artificial intelligence runs on algorithm, which is why I voted "moderate"
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Job description

Diagnose diseases and conduct lab tests using organs, body tissues, and fluids. Includes medical examiners.

O*NET-SOC code: 29-1222.00