According to a survey of practicing physicians in various countries worldwide, physicians in the United States have the highest overall income with approximately 353,000 U.S. dollars. Second highest on the list, surveyed Canadian physicians were paid on average 273,000 U.S. dollars. In all surveyed countries, female physicians earned consistently less than their male counterparts.

According to a survey of practicing physicians in various countries, female physicians generally had lower salaries than their male counterparts. The average male physician in the United States earned 386,000 U.S. dollars while female doctors were paid just 300,000 U.S. dollars. In terms of percentage, the pay gap was widest in Portugal, where male doctors earned over 60 percent more than female doctors.

According to a survey of practicing physicians in various countries, male specialists had higher salaries than female specialists, with male specialist physicians in the United States earning 372,000 U.S. dollars and females earning 280,000 U.S. dollars. This statistic shows the salaries of specialist physicians in select countries worldwide in 2019, by gender.

In a survey of practicing physicians in various countries worldwide, around half of U.S. physicians felt fairly compensated, while just one in five physicians in the UK said so. While the average compensation of surveyed physicians play a large part. Cost of living, working conditions, work-life balance and many more factors also influence whether physicians feel they are compensated fairly or not.

Among OECD countries in 2022, South Korea had the highest rate of yearly visits to a doctor per capita. On average, people in South Korea visited the doctors 15.7 times per year in person. Health care utilization is an important indicator of the success of a country’s health care system. There are many factors that affect health care utilization including healthcare structure and the supply of health care providers.

OECD health systems

Healthcare systems globally include a variety of tools for accessing healthcare, including private insurance based systems, like in the U.S., and universal systems, like in the U.K. Health systems have varying costs among the OECD countries. Worldwide, Europe has the highest expenditures for health as a proportion of the GDP. Among all OECD countries, The United States had the highest share of government spending on health care. Recent estimates of current per capita health expenditures showed the United States also had, by far, the highest per capita spending on health worldwide.

Supply of health providers

Globally, the country with the highest physician density is Cuba, although most other countries with high number of physicians to population was found in Europe. The number of graduates of medicine impacts the number of available physicians in countries. Among OECD countries, Latvia had the highest rate of graduates of medicine, which was almost twice the rate of the OECD average.

On average, doctors in Russia earned approximately 113,600 Russian rubles per month in 2023. In Moscow, the figure was significantly higher, measuring at roughly 204,100 Russian rubles. The mid-level medical staff across the country received around 55,000 Russian rubles per month, which was below the average salary in Russia.

The lack of medical services in West Africa represents a serious issue in sanitary emergency. As of April 2020, different West African countries counted less than a doctor every 10,000 inhabitants. Especially, Sierra Leone had three physicians per 100,000 individuals, the lowest density of medical doctors in West Africa. Moreover, Burkina Faso was estimated to have only 11 ventilators in the whole country for a population of almost 20 million people.

The average number of doctors across the OECD countries in 2019 equaled to 35 per 10,000 inhabitants. The member countries of OECD are mostly high-income countries, whereas Nigeria is an emerging economy and it belongs to countries with lower middle-incomes.

As of September 2024, there were a total of 566,404 specialty physicians active in the United States. Of these, most were specialized in emergency medicine. Physician compensation Significant pay variations exist across specialties and regions, with orthopedic doctors and surgeons command the highest average annual salaries at 558,000 U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, the West North Central area offers the highest average physician compensation at 404,000 U.S. dollars annually. This region's higher pay likely stems from lower physician density in rural areas, creating less competition. Interestingly, doctors in Northeastern and Southwestern parts of the United States tend to earn less than their counterparts in other regions. Burnout among physicians Despite high salaries, U.S. physicians face high workload and stress in the workplace. Nearly half of surveyed doctors reported feeling burnout, with higher burnout rates among female doctors, younger physicians, and those in primary care compared to their counterparts. More effort to combat burnout is needed in the healthcare system. Increasing compensation was cited by physicians as the top measure to alleviate burnout, followed by adding support staff and offering more flexible schedules.

In 2022, practice satisfaction among primary care physicians varied significantly from one country to another. According to this survey conducted in 2022, physicians in Switzerland were mostly satisfied with their medical practice. That year, nearly 58 percent of Swiss doctors stated to be satisfied with their practice. On the other hand, physicians in the United Kingdom were the least satisfied among surveyed countries.

In 2023, there were almost 52 doctors per 10,000 population in Russia. The density of doctors in the country has gradually increased in recent years after a decline in 2015, when the figure fell to around 46 medical professionals per 10,000 residents. How many doctors work in Russia? The number of doctors in the country grew by 85,800 between 2015 and 2023. In total, approximately 759,000 physicians were employed in healthcare in Russia during that year. Over 567,000 medical doctors worked in the public sector, including educational, scientific, cultural, healthcare, and social services organizations, in 2022. Importance of doctors’ density during COVID-19 During the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, countries with a low density of physicians have been suffering from limited healthcare resources and unequal access to medical assistance, as highlighted by the International Labor Organization Department of Statistics (Ilostat). Russia is the only non-high-income country among those with the highest doctors’ density worldwide. There were five infectious disease specialists per 100,000 inhabitants in the country as of April 2020.

In 2022, primary care physicians were surveyed based on their burnout rate at work in selected countries. That year, more than half of all surveyed doctors reported being under stress, but with no feelings of burnout. According to this survey, less than five percent of the surveyed doctors in Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States felt completely burned out and questioned their ability to work.

In 2022, over 18 percent of surveyed Canadian doctors reported significant burnout, followed by 18 percent of doctors in New Zealand. On the other hand, among surveyed countries, Switz physicians seemed to be the least burned out in 2022.

In 2021, there were over 65 thousand general practitioners (GP) practicing in France, the highest number recorded in Europe, followed by Germany with approximately 61 thousand GPs and the Turkey with 60 thousand.

Visiting the doctor

In 2018, a survey of French individuals revealed that 83 percent of respondents consult with a physician at least once a year. Furthermore, 46 percent of those will see their doctor three times or more in a year. In Great Britain, the share of respondents who visit a physician at least once a year is lower than in France with 66 percent going at least once.

Comparisons of other healthcare personnel

Germany had the highest total number of employees in health and social care in Europe in 2021 with over 6.3 million individuals working in this sector, followed by the UK with approximately 4.2 million and France with roughly four million employees in the health and social care sector.

As of May 2024, the total number of professionally active physicians in the United States amounted to 1,109,460 physicians. From a state perspective, California had the most number of active physicians with over 119 thousand physicians, followed by New York. On the other hand, with just 1,245 physicians, Wyoming had the least number of active physicians in the United States.

As of 2022, Norway had the highest share of foreign-trained doctors among European countries. This is disregarding Luxembourg, which has no full medical school in the country. Ireland also had a high number of doctors who trained overseas, some four in ten doctors. It is important to remember that foreign training does not equal foreign nationality.

As of 2022, 67 percent of primary care physicians in the United Kingdom reported seeing more than a quarter of their patients through telehealth in a typical week, the highest share among selected high-income countries. On the other hand, 28 percent of physicians in France and 18 percent of physicians in the U.S. reported not using telehealth at all.

In 2022, the number of foreign-trained doctors that migrated to Chile to practice medicine amounted to 1,510 professionals, up from 1,210 foreign physicians registered a year earlier. The highest inflow of foreign physicians to Chile during the period examined reached 1,906 health care professionals in 2017. Venezuela was the country of origin of 894 trained doctors who relocated to Chile in 2021.

In 2022, there were around 7600 Saudi physicians working in Saudi Arabia. During the same year, there were roughly 5800 foreign physicians working in the country. Since 2020, there have been more Saudi physicians in the country than foreign physicians whereas is previous years, foreign physicians always used to outnumber local doctors.  Insight into the healthcare industry of Saudi Arabia  The growing healthcare budget and investments made over the previous ten years are evidence that the demand for healthcare in Saudi Arabia has continued to climb. Saudi Arabia accounted for 60 percent of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations' healthcare spending. Since 2010 the number of hospitals in Saudi Arabia has increased significantly across the country. In 2020, the region with the highest number of hospitals across the kingdom was Riyadh.  Demographics of physicians in Saudi Arabia With the new Saudization requirement, healthcare facilities must ensure that at least 60 percent of their workforce are Saudi nationals. With the number of physicians almost doubling over the past decade (608539), the share of Saudi physicians has been increasing over the years compared to non-Saudi physicians in the country. It was forecasted that the number of physicians in the country will grow to exceed one million by 2025.

Among OECD member countries, the United States had the highest percentage of gross domestic product spent on health care as of 2023. The U.S. spent nearly 16 percent of its GDP on health care services. Germany, France and Japan followed the U.S. with distinctly smaller percentages. The United States had both significantly higher private and public spending on health compared with other developed countries. Why compare OECD countries?OECD stands for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It is an economic organization consisting of 38 members, mostly high-income countries and committed to democratic principles and market economy. This makes OECD statistics more comparable than statistics of developed and undeveloped countries. Health economics is an important matter for the OECD, even more since increasing health costs and an aging population have become an issue for many developed countries. Health costs in the U.S.  A higher GDP share spent on health care does not automatically lead to a better functioning health system. In the case of the U.S., high spending is mainly because of higher costs and prices, not due to higher utilization. For example, physicians’ salaries are much higher in the U.S. than in other comparable countries. A doctor in the U.S. earns almost twice as much as the average physician in Germany. Pharmaceutical spending per capita is also distinctly higher in the United States. Furthermore, the U.S. also spends more on health administrative costs compare to other wealthy countries.

Global Total Doctors by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Doctors’ data is compiled by the Department of Health as part of the Non-Monetary Health Care Statistics, administered jointly by Eurostat, OECD and WHO in fulfilment of the European regulation (EU) 2022/2294. These statistics are compiled and published on an annual basis and refer to the stock of doctors according to country from where they obtained their first medical qualification, as at end of the referenced year.