Maine ranked one of the worst states for doctors

Dr. Mohammad Tabbah, a pediatric gastroenterologist, works with a young patient and his family at Eastern Maine Medical Center in this 2011 BDN file photo.

Dr. Mohammad Tabbah, a pediatric gastroenterologist, works with a young patient and his family at Eastern Maine Medical Center in this 2011 BDN file photo.

Health care professionals are regularly shown to be in high demand in Maine, but the state’s work environment for doctors won’t do much to entice them, the latest WalletHub study reports.

Dr. Sylvana Atallah listens to a patient's heart at Eastern Maine Medical Center in this 2007 BDN file photo.

Dr. Sylvana Atallah listens to a patient’s heart at Eastern Maine Medical Center in this 2007 BDN file photo.

The finance website — which regularly churns out stacks of niche studies on state-by-state economics, as well as those nifty interactive maps we all love sharing on social media — is calling Maine the fifth worst state in America to be a doctor.

Contributing to the Pine Tree State’s poor showing are bottom 10 rankings in starting salary for doctors, projected physicians per capita and malpractice payouts per capita.

The only states less attractive for doctors were New York, Oregon, New Jersey and Rhode Island. The best states for doctors to work, according to WalletHub, are South Carolina, Minnesota and Texas, in that order.

To reach its conclusions, WalletHub researchers looked at criteria such as relative pay, malpractice insurance costs, numbers of hospitals, insured population rates, and how punitive each state medical board is, among other things.

Scroll over the states in the interactive map below to see where WalletHub ranks each state in terms of work environment for doctors:

Source: WalletHub