The number of new family doctors providing care in Canada has slowed over the past decade, according to a new report.
The annual report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), examines trends among health-care professionals offering primary care services.
The growth of doctors entering the field has slowed from 3 percent between 2015 and 2017 to one percent between 2021 and 2023, the report released Dec. 17 found. The drop in family doctors occurred at the same time as a rapid increase in Canada’s population, CIHI said.
CIHI also noted that physicians have been seeing fewer patients than they did 10 years ago. There could be multiple reasons for this, including an aging and complex patient population that requires more time per visit, the expansion of the role of nurse practitioners and pharmacists, and the need for work-life balance, the institute said….