Education/Training

• An undergraduate degree is the first step in becoming a medical pathologist. Ideally, your undergraduate degree would be in a science-heavy subject like biology, organic chemistry or a pre-med curriculum. Four years of medical school is next, followed by residency and fellowship programs of three to eight years, depending on your specialty or sub-specialty.
  
  

National Salary Averages

• The median salary for pathologists in the United States is $245,871, according to Salary.com. The Physician Compensation Survey conducted by the American Medical Group Association lists the median pathologist salary as $354,750. CB Salary places the average salary at $285,397. According to My Pursuit, the middle 50 percent of U.S. pathologists earn $189,914 to $279,494 a year.
  
  

Nashua

• Salary.com reports that the median salary for a pathologist in Nashua, New Hampshire, is $258,908. Those in the bottom 10th percentile earn an average salary of $197,360 while the top 90th percentile earn $348,659. The middle 50 percent of pathologists earned $226,689 to $305,884. CB Salary lists the average Nashua pathologist salary as $326,532. The average salary of all MDs in Nashua is $197,982.
  
  

Other Cities

• The average salary reported by CB Salary for a pathologist in New Hampshire's capital, Concord, is $337,430. Manchester is New Hampshire's largest city and also pays an average pathologist salary of $337,430. The Nashua-Manchester metropolitan area was ranked by Forbes in 2009 as the cheapest place in the U.S. in which to live based on safety, employment opportunities and quality of life. The average salary of MDs of all types in Manchester is $168,692. Salem, a city of 28,776 that's considered part of Greater Boston, has an average salary of $169,615 for pathologists. Portsmouth, a seaport and summer tourist attraction settled in 1630, has an average pathologist wage of $322,401 a year.
  
  

Comparison

• New Hampshire is the fourth-highest-paying state in the country for physician and surgeon salaries, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average salary is $206,680, trailing only Minnesota, Indiana and Georgia. The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn't identify pathologist data individually. As a specialty, pathologists --- at $354,750 per year in the Physician Compensation Survey --- rank ahead of kidney reproductive endocrinologists, who make a median salary of $317,312; psychiatrists, who earn median salaries of $214,740; nuclear medicine physicians, who make $331,000 annually; and emergency-care doctors at $267,293. Cardiologists make higher median salaries than pathologists at $402,000 per year, as do dermatologists at $375,176, and general surgeons at $357,091.