What Does Salley Do For a Job From Southern Charm? Her Real Career May Be Related to Her Dramatic Exit on The Bachelor
Jason Pham
She may have been on four reality shows, but Southern Charm‘s Salley Carson may make more from her real job than any of her TV appearances.
Salley joined Southern Charm as a main cast member in Season 10. Before that, she made guest appearances on Season 2 of Southern Charm‘s spinoff, Southern Hospitality, and was a contestant on The Bachelor Season 26 and Bachelor in Paradise Season 8. While Southern Charm is, by far, her biggest reality TV gig to date, it doesn’t seem like Salley has cashed in fully on her reality TV fame just yet, as seen in her appearance in scrubs on the Bravo show from her uniform at her real job. So what does Salley do for a job on Southern Charm? Read on to find out.
What does Salley do for a job from Southern Charm?
According to her LinkedIn, Salley works as a Hybrid Robotic and Core Spinal Representative for Medtronic Spine & Biologics, a medical tech company, in the Columbia, South Carolina, area. She’s had her job since December 2022.
Before that, Salley worked at the company Medtronic in Richmond, Virginia as a Clinical Specialist and an Associate Navigation and Robotics Consultant. She also worked for a time as a Clinical specialist at Mazor Robotics in Charlotte, North Carolina. She graduated from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina, with a Bachelor of Science in 2017.
“People are always shocked when I tell them I control a robot in spine surgery. I’m like, ‘Excuse me? Do I not look like somebody that would do that?'” Salley said in an episode of Southern Charm in 2024. She continued, “When I was 15 years old, I thought I would have probably three kids by now. Because I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, my family was very, very Southern. I did the whole cotillion thing. Went to debutante balls. But it wasn’t for me; I just wanted to be a boss.”
Salley also hinted at her career in medicine in her biography for The Bachelor Season 26. “Salley is a real-life Meredith Grey looking for her McDreamy. She is a spine surgery robot operator who keeps a tight circle of friends that she likes to have dinner and drinks with but is a career-focused girl who is usually in bed by 11 p.m. She describes herself as religious, family-oriented and adventurous. She says she wants a man who is loyal, fun and willing to give her lots of attention because, why lie? She loves it! She says that when it comes to relationships, she is incredibly supportive and loves to make her man feel appreciated and wanted. What more could Clayton want?!” her biography read.
A month before she started filming The Bachelor, Salley was engaged to a spinal surgeon named Dr. Avery Buccholz.Clayton’s Bachelor season started filming on September 29, 2021, and Salley had her Bachelorette party in Mexico as early as August 16, 2021, according to an Instagram photo posted by her friend. Salley and Avery’s wedding date was September 26, 2021 (the day Clayton’s Bachelor season started filming), according to their wedding registry page on Crate & Barrel’s website. Salley and Avery broke up a couple weeks before their wedding date, according to Bachelor spoilers site, Reality Steve. (Her job on The Bachelor was even listed as “Previously Engaged.”
According to Reality Steve, production learned of Salley’s engagement to Avery days before Clayton’s Bachelor season started filming and asked if she still wanted to be on the show, to which she said no. In the premiere episode, Salley meets Clayton at his hotel room five hours before the Night One Limo entrances, where she tells him about her past engagement to Avery and her decision to quit his season of The Bachelor due to how unready she feels to date again so soon after her breakup. Clayton commends Salley’s vulnerability and offers her a rose to stay on her season. Salley leaves the room to talk to someone on the phone over whether to stay or leave before she returns and tells Clayton of her decision to quit The Bachelor, making her the first contestant eliminated on Clayton’s Bachelor season.
Salley’s ex-fiance Avery Buccholz, a neurosurgeon and an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. Avery also owns his own practice in Virginia and specializes in “adult degenerative scoliosis, complex spine revisions, and minimally invasive spinal procedures.” “Dr. Buchholz grew up in rural Wisconsin prior to attending The Citadel in Charleston SC,” his bio on the University of Virginia’s website reads. “After graduating summa cum laude, he returned to the University of Wisconsin for medical school where he earned both a Doctor of Medicine and a Masters in Public Health. He then completed a neurological surgery residency at the Medical University of South Carolina. He earned the Intern of the Year Award his first year of training and was one of the most outstanding residents in neurosurgery throughout.”
How much does Salley make from her job?
According to Salley, she earns around $400,000 annually from her job as a spine surgery robot operator. “I feel like I’ve finally become a very strong, independent Southern woman,” she said on Southern Charm. “I don’t need a guy to have a house. I don’t even need a guy to have kids. I can do it all on my own.”
Along with her current career, Salley also worked for a time at her Southern Charm co-star Leva Bonaparte’s restaurant, Republic, in Charleston and was featured on Season 2 of the Southern Charm spinoff, Southern Hospitality. We both were doing like front door VIP, but she always got to leave early because she’s got this pretty legitimate job teaching surgeons how to use surgical robots,” Salley’s Southern Charm co-star, Molly O’Connell said in an episode of the show in 2024.
