15 best paid jobs in America, 2006

The medical profession dominates the top end of 2006 Forbe's list of the 25 best- and worst-paying jobs in America, again. (and may be for another 50 years).

If you just look at top 15 jobs (see list below), Surgeons are No. 1, with the next seven spots taken by various sorts of specialist medical practitioners. Chief executives, at No. 9, and airline pilots, at No. 13, are the only two non-medical occupations in the top 15. Since US needs far, far more medical practitioners than Chief executives and airline pilots, no wonder financially pushy parents want their children to become or marry doctors.

The top 15 jobs and their mean annual salary:
1) Surgeons - $181,850
2) Anesthesiologists - $174,610
3) Obstetricians and Gynecologists - $174,490

4) Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons - $169,600
5) Internists, General - $156,790

6) Prosthodontists - $156,710
7) Orthodontists - $153,240

8) Psychiatrists - $151,380
9) Chief Executives - $140,880

10) Pediatricians, General - $140,000

11)Family and General Practitioners - $137,980
12) Physicians and Surgeons, all other- $137,100

13) Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers - $134,090

14) Dentists, General - $132,660

15) Podiatrists - $111,130

(No. 16 profession is Lawyers, with mean annual salary of $110,590).