The number of physicians across the United States reveals significant variations, with California leading the pack at around ******* active doctors as of September 2025. This concentration of medical professionals in populous states highlights the ongoing challenge of ensuring adequate healthcare access nationwide. The stark contrast between California's physician count and Wyoming's mere ***** doctors underscores the need for targeted efforts to address healthcare workforce shortages in less populated areas. Primary care and specialist distribution California leads also in both primary care physicians and specialists, accounting for over ** percent of each category nationally. This concentration of medical expertise in California reflects broader trends, with New York and Texas following as the states with the highest numbers of active primary care physicians. The distribution of specialists also mirrors national patterns, with psychiatry, surgery, and anaesthesiology among the most common specialties. Physician burnout While the number of physicians continues to grow, physician burnout remains a significant issue. There are large variations in rates of burnout depending on a physician's gender and specialty. For example, burnout is disproportionally high among women, affecting ** percent of female physicians and ** percent of male physicians. Meanwhile, emergency medicine physicians reported the highest levels of burnout among specialists, highlighting the need for targeted interventions to support the individual needs of doctors depending on their different circumstances.

As of January 2025, California was the U.S. state with the highest number of active specialist physicians, reporting just over 63 thousand specialist doctors. Of the total 567 thousand specialist physicians in the U.S. in total, California accounted for around 11 percent.

As of January 2025, the states with the highest number of active primary care physicians (PCPs) were California, New York, and Texas. As of that time, of the ****** PCPs in the United States, around ** percent were in the state of California. Physicians by specialty In the United States, the specialties with the highest number of active physicians include emergency medicine, psychiatry, surgery, and anaesthesiology. The most popular physician specialties in the state of California mirror this national trend. In 2025, California had over ***** psychiatrists and almost ***** surgeons. Physician burn-out Although being a physician can be a rewarding and lucrative profession, physicians often feel stressed and burned-out. In 2024, a survey of physicians in the U.S. found that ** percent of female and ** percent of male physicians felt burned out. Moreover, PCPs, employed physicians, and doctors aged 45 and under were more likely to be burned out than their counterparts.

Medical Doctors in the United States increased to 2.77 per 1000 people in 2019 from 2.74 per 1000 people in 2018. This dataset includes a chart with historical data for the United States Medical Doctors.

Physicians (per 1,000 people) in United States was reported at 3.608 in 2021, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. United States - Physicians - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on February of 2026.

Health professionals, especially primary care physicians, are in high demand in many parts of the U.S. Some areas are experiencing health professional shortages. This map shows the ratio of population to primary care physicians in the U.S. Areas in dark red show where there are less primary care physicians per person.The data comes from County Health Rankings, a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, measure the health of nearly all counties in the nation and rank them within states. The layer used in the map comes from ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, and the full documentation for the layer can be found here.County data are suppressed if, for both years of available data, the population reported by agencies is less than 50% of the population reported in Census or less than 80% of agencies measuring crimes reported data.

As of 2024, the number of licensed physicians in the United States and the District of Columbia amounted to over a ******* physicians. This included both Doctors of Medicine and Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine. The number of licensed U.S. physicians has been steadily increasing since 2010.

The dataset comprises the yearwise and State/UT wise number of MBBS doctors registered with State Medical Councils/National Medical Commission as of 31 December of each year. NB: Data for 2021 is not available. Medical Council of India (MCI) stopped registration since 2015

Number of Doctors: Registered: State Medical Council: Uttar Pradesh data was reported at 3,799.000 Person in 2019. This records an increase from the previous number of 3,669.000 Person for 2018. Number of Doctors: Registered: State Medical Council: Uttar Pradesh data is updated yearly, averaging 2,023.500 Person from Dec 2002 (Median) to 2019, with 18 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 3,799.000 Person in 2019 and a record low of 594.000 Person in 2014. Number of Doctors: Registered: State Medical Council: Uttar Pradesh data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Central Bureau of Health Intelligence. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Health Sector – Table IN.HLB001: Health Human Resources: Number of Doctors: Registered.

The average for 2020 based on 27 countries was 3.56 doctors per 1,000 people. The highest value was in Austria: 5.35 doctors per 1,000 people and the lowest value was in Brazil: 2.05 doctors per 1,000 people. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2021. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

In 2023, the United States had an average of *** physicians per 100,000 population. This varied widely by state. The ******************** had the highest physician density, followed by *************, ********, and ********* On the other hand, ***** had the lowest number of active licensed physicians per population, followed by ************

The data shows the year-wise state and union territory-wise number of government allopathic doctors and government dental surgeons in India according to Directorate Health Services of respective State/UT. The data for each year is as of a reference date which has been given in the 'notes' column.

NB: 'year' column refers to the year in which the data was published in the National Health Profile.

Number of Doctors: Registered: State Medical Council: Uttarakhand data was reported at 659.000 Person in 2019. This records a decrease from the previous number of 928.000 Person for 2018. Number of Doctors: Registered: State Medical Council: Uttarakhand data is updated yearly, averaging 572.000 Person from Dec 2005 (Median) to 2019, with 15 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,510.000 Person in 2008 and a record low of 169.000 Person in 2013. Number of Doctors: Registered: State Medical Council: Uttarakhand data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Central Bureau of Health Intelligence. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Health Sector – Table IN.HLB001: Health Human Resources: Number of Doctors: Registered.

Percentage point difference between the share of the total population who is Asian and the share of total physician workforce who is Asian, 2023. Notes: Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race but are categorized as Hispanic for this analysis; other groups are non-Hispanic.

ONC uses the SK&A Office-based Provider Database to calculate the counts of medical doctors, doctors of osteopathy, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants at the state and count level from 2011 through 2013. These counts are grouped as a total, as well as segmented by each provider type and separately as counts of primary care providers.

Number of Businesses statistics on the Primary Care Doctors industry in the US

flowchart showing Physician State Decision Flow

hbar chart showing Share of Physicians Age 60+ by Region (Illustrative)

In 2019, there were around ** active physicians per 10,000 civilians in the District of Columbia, followed by the state of Massachusetts with around ** active physicians per 10,000 civilians. This statistic shows the top 10 U.S. states by number of active physicians per 10,000 civilian population in 2019.

This statistic shows the total number of doctors of medicine in the United States from 1949 to 2015. In 1949, there were ******* doctors of medicine in the United States. Some 50 years later, the number was around **** times as high. In 2015, the exact number of doctors of medicine was *********.