A neonatal surgeon is a tightly specialized type of surgeon who works particularly with infants and newborns. The job is a sub specialization of the job of a pediatric surgeon – even though a regular surgeon is normally able to perform operations on children and infants, only those who’ve specialized in neonatal surgery have the intricate skills and knowledge required to operate on infants without risking their health in any way. Neonatal surgeons may work with adults in some cases when it’s needed, but they’ll typically restrict themselves to working on infants.
Becoming a neonatal surgeon is as difficult as most other surgeons’ jobs – it requires first completing medical school and then specializing for a set number of years until attaining a license to work as a surgeon. Neonatal surgeons additionally experience a lot of pressure while doing their jobs for a variety of reasons, though this hasn’t stopped the job from becoming one of the easily most popular positions in the medical sector.
A neonatal surgeon is typically paid very highly, with the annual salary ranging between $280,000 – $310,000. This is high even for a surgeon in general, and the large difference comes from the highly specific responsibilities attached to a neonatal surgeon’s job, which can require a lot of dedication and hard work to perform properly. Additionally, neonatal surgeons tend to suffer from infrequent and inflexible working hours, something which further works to justify the high salary.