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How many doctors are there in Canada?

Canada had more than 96,000 doctors at last count in 2022. That’s just over two doctors for every 1,000 people in the country. Roughly half of these are family doctors – the ones you’d normally see first when you’re sick or need health advice. The rest are doctors who focus on specialized areas of medicine like surgeons, radiologists and psychiatrists.

Is the number of doctors in Canada increasing or decreasing?

Technically, Canada has 35% more doctors now relative to its population than it did back in the 1980s. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Demand for health care has gone up as Canada’s population has gotten older and sicker overall.
Meanwhile, the average hours doctors work has dropped by roughly 20%.

Let’s talk solutions

What experts are saying:

Governments, medical organizations and universities can work together to increase people’s access to doctors by:

Boosting the number of medical training spots, especially for specialties in high demand like family medicine.
Making the most of international expertise. Only 41% of the foreign-trained doctors living in Canada are practising medicine, largely because of regulatory hurdles to working in their field.
Keeping doctors healthy and safe. Four in five doctors say they experience bullying and harassment at work – so it’s not surprising that nearly half have considered reducing their hours.