An audiologist and an ENT physician both work in hearing care, but they are different careers, not two names for one job.
An audiologist completes a Doctor of Audiology (AuD) and holds a state audiology license; an ENT physician completes medical school and residency in otolaryngology–head and neck surgery.
This page compares the two paths — training, scope, pay and day-to-day work — for career choosers and for practices staffing both roles.
What is the difference between an audiologist and an ENT?
The two careers share patients, but not training, licenses or duties.
An audiologist is a hearing and balance clinician: ASHA's Scope of Practice in Audiology, the profession's 2018 policy statement, says audiologists engage in hearing and balance assessment, nonmedical treatment and rehabilitation, including diagnosis, for people of all ages.
An ENT physician practices in the specialty of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery.
ABOHNS, the specialty's certifying board, says a physician must complete an ACGME-accredited residency program to be certified in the field, at the end of a route that runs through medical school.
The career difference in one line: audiology is a doctorate-clinician profession whose scope centers on nonmedical treatment and rehabilitation, while ENT is a physician specialty in medicine and surgery.
For an employer, the two roles are complements rather than substitutes — medical and surgical care sit on the physician's side of that pairing, and hearing and balance testing and rehabilitation on the audiologist's.
Training: the AuD vs medical school and residency
The audiologist route is one doctorate plus a state license.
BLS says audiologists typically need a Doctor of Audiology (AuD) degree, which typically takes 4 years, and that entry to an AuD program requires a bachelor's degree.
As of July 2026, the CAA reported 77 AuD programs nationally: 76 accredited and 1 candidate program.
Licensure is the second gate, and it is state by state.
BLS notes all states require audiologists to be licensed, with requirements that vary by state but typically include an AuD from an accredited program.
The audiologist career guide walks through the degree and the license step.
The ENT route runs through medicine.
BLS says physicians and surgeons need a bachelor's degree, 4 years of medical school and 3 to 9 years in internship and residency programs, depending on the specialty.
ABOHNS board certification in otolaryngology–head and neck surgery requires completing an ACGME-accredited residency program.
One caution when you compare the two timelines: our sources confirm the all-specialty residency range but did not confirm the residency length for otolaryngology alone, so treat any single ENT residency figure as unverified unless its source states it.
Training and licensure rules change
Scope: what each can diagnose and treat
Both scopes include diagnosis; treatment is where they part ways.
O*NET's task list for audiologists makes the audiology side concrete: evaluating hearing and balance disorders to determine diagnoses and courses of treatment, fitting, dispensing and repairing hearing aids, examining and cleaning ear canals, and programming and monitoring cochlear implants.
ASHA's scope document frames treatment and rehabilitation as nonmedical work, delivered to people of all ages.
The ENT physician's territory is the medical and surgical specialty of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery, entered through medical school and residency, with board certification tied to an ACGME-accredited program.
In practice the boundary runs through state licensure law and through scope documents such as ASHA's, not through job titles.
Prescribing is one open question: whether audiologists may prescribe medication is not established in our research either way, so confirm scope-of-practice rules with the state audiology board and, where a question crosses into medicine, the state medical board.
Pay and lifestyle compared
The two careers appear in federal pay data at very different levels, and with different limits.
BLS's OEWS survey for May 2025 put the median annual wage for audiologists at $95,780, counting 13,660 wage-and-salary audiologists nationally (SOC 29-1181).
In offices of physicians — the employer group that includes ENT practices — the audiologist median was $92,620.
On the physician side, BLS reported a May 2025 median of $275,930 for physicians and surgeons.
That is a figure for the occupation as a whole rather than for otolaryngology alone, so read it as the medical-career scale and not as an ENT salary.
Lifestyle differences start with the training runway: an AuD typically takes 4 years after a bachelor's degree, while the physician path adds medical school and 3 to 9 years of internship and residency depending on specialty.
BLS's Employment Projections base, which counts self-employed workers alongside employees, put 2.2% of audiologists at self-employment in 2025.
Weekly hours, call schedules and vacation are not quantified in our research for either career, so weigh what a specific employer's posting and interview show.
How audiologists and ENTs work together
The two professions share buildings as well as patients.
BLS counted 3,660 audiologists employed in offices of physicians in May 2025 — the employer group an ENT practice sits in.
Federal rulebooks name the two professions side by side.
Under OSHA's noise standard, audiometric tests must be performed by a licensed or certified audiologist, an otolaryngologist or other physician, or a technician who is CAOHC-certified or has demonstrated competence.
Any such technician must be responsible to an audiologist, otolaryngologist or physician, and the professional overseeing the audiometric program — the professional supervisor — determines work-relatedness of hearing loss for OSHA 300 Log recording.
Medicare billing draws its own line.
CMS policy states that individuals who are hearing instrument specialists or audiology students may furnish the labor for audiology tests only under direct physician supervision when a physician or hospital outpatient department bills for the tests, depending on the Medicare Administrative Contractor's qualifications.
A practice confirms how the rule applies to its own staffing with its MAC and its billing adviser.
For the career view of that arrangement, the medical audiologist career guide covers the ENT, hospital and diagnostic audiology roles built for medical settings.
Which career should you choose?
Frame the choice as time against territory.
The audiologist path reaches clinical practice sooner: a 4-year AuD after a bachelor's degree, then a state license, with BLS projecting audiologist employment to grow 11.0% from 2025 to 2035 and about 600 openings a year.
The ENT path is longer and lands in medicine: a bachelor's degree, 4 years of medical school and 3 to 9 years of internship and residency depending on specialty, then board certification tied to an ACGME-accredited residency.
The BLS medians run far higher for physicians, and the trade is a longer runway and work centered on medical and surgical care rather than rehabilitation.
For employers the question is rarely which one but how the two fit together: an ENT group that adds audiology hires audiologists for the testing and hearing care side, while medical and surgical care stays with its physicians.
Career information, not licensing, legal, medical or clinical advice. Training, licensure, scope and certification requirements change — confirm current rules with the state audiology or medical board where you plan to practice and with the bodies named above.