Also called: Sleep Doctor, Sleep Specialist
Diagnoses and treats sleep disorders like sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and insomnia.
Reviews overnight sleep-study recordings of brain waves and breathing, diagnoses a truck driver with severe sleep apnea, and helps a teen with narcolepsy find a treatment that lets them stay awake in class.
BLS top-codes physician pay; estimate for attending physicians after residency/fellowship.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Professional degree (MD, JD, DVM…), about 13 years after high school. Bachelor's, medical school, residency (internal medicine, neurology, pediatrics, or psychiatry), then a 1-year sleep fellowship.
Ways in: 4-year college, Professional school. Training cost: Over $150k.
Majors to look at: Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry.
Growing about average. Tracks physicians and surgeons overall (about 3% over 10 years); shortages in many regions.
Low risk in 5 years, medium in 10. AI already scores sleep studies and home tests, reducing reading time; diagnosis, treatment plans and patient coaching stay human.
Classes: AP Biology, Psychology, AP Statistics, Chemistry.
Official data: O*NET occupation 29-1229.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.