Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet Union consistently had more physicians per 100,000 population than the United States, with the U.S. having roughly two thirds the number of doctors per capita that the USSR had. In real numbers, there were 1.05 million physicians in the Soviet Union in 1985, compared with 0.58 million in the U.S.. In contrast, the U.S. had more dentists per capita than the Soviet Union in these years (which had notoriously bad overall dental care), while the share of nurses was higher in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, but higher in the U.S. in the 1980s. Healthcare in the Soviet Union Despite this relatively large difference in the number of doctors, the death rate in the Soviet Union increased greatly in these years, while it fell in the U.S.. Until the 1970s, healthcare in the Soviet Union had been a centralized system, among the most competent and reliable in the world, and it oversaw significant improvements in the living standards of Soviet citizens while maintaining developmental pace with the west. This system was overhauled in the 1970s, however, and the economic downturn of the following two decades meant that the Soviet healthcare system then deteriorated. Internal standards dropped, less time was spent on patients, and access to medicines (particularly antibiotics) and equipment fell. The supposedly "free" system also became increasingly dominated by under the table payments, where citizens could be expected to pay 500 rubles (2.5 times the average monthly salary) for an operation or baby delivery.

While the number of physicians and hospital beds increased in the 1970s and 1980s, the lack of training saw an overall decline in the standard of healthcare provided. In these decades, a private healthcare system also opened for Soviet elites, and a disproportionate amount of healthcare professionals defected from state-run hospitals. Following Soviet dissolution in the 1990s, attempted reforms in successor states often failed due to economic mismanagement, and the quality of healthcare dropped even further in many areas, before gradually improving in the past two decades.

As of 2022, the number of licensed physicians in the United States and the District of Columbia amounted to 1,062,460 physicians. At the time, the national population was roughly 333 million, which yielded a physician-to-population ratio of 313 licensed physicians per 100,000 population. The density of licensed U.S. physicians has steadily increased since 2010.

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.

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.

Long-term quantitative series for 20 Latin American countries, spanning from 1960 to 2020, on the number of hospital beds, physicians, nurses and healthcare expenditure.

Matus-Lopez, M. and Fernández Pérez, P. 2023. "Transformations in Latin American Healthcare: A Retrospective Analysis of Hospital Beds, Medical Doctors, and Nurses from 1960 to 2022". Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business.

The information was extracted from official reports and cross-country databases. Official reports were available in digital format in the Institutional Repository for Information Sharing (IRIS) of Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). They were summary of four-year reports on Health Conditions in the Americas (PAHO 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002a), annual reports of Basic Indicators (PAHO 2002b, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013), Health in South America (PAHO 2012) and Core Indicators (PAHO 2016). Databases were Open Data Portal of the Pan American Health Organization (PLISA) (PAHO 2023), Core Indicator Database provided directly by PAHO (PAHO 2022), Data Portal of National Health Workforce Accounts of the World Health Organization (NHWA) (WHO 2022), and the Global Health Expenditure Database of the World Health Organization (GHED) (WHO 2023).

Serie 1. Hospital Beds per 1,000 inhabitants

Serie 2. Physicians per 10,000 inhabitants

Serie 3. Nurses per 10,000 inhabitants

Serie 4. Government spending on health, per capita. Constant US dollars of 2020

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The states with the most number of active physicians include California, New York, Texas, and Florida. California currently has the most number of active physicians of any U.S. state, with around 125,566 physicians. In California, the specialties with the most physicians are psychiatry, emergency medicine, and anesthesiology. Specialty areas In general, the most common specialty areas for physicians in the U.S. are emergency medicine, psychiatry, surgery, and anesthesiology. As of 2024, there were around 58,900 psychiatrists in the U.S. Concerning the gender distribution of specialty physicians, males out number females in almost every specialty, with exceptions found in mainly in various pediatric disciplines, and obstetrics and gynecology. Compensation The specialty areas with the highest average annual compensation are plastic surgery, orthopedics, and cardiology. As of 2024, a physician in orthopedics earned an average of 558,000 U.S. dollars per year. Male physicians still earn more than their female counterparts in both primary care and specialty settings. This difference is especially large in specialty settings where male physicians earn more than 100,000 dollars more per year than female physicians.

I medici negli Stati Uniti sono aumentati a 2,77 per 1000 persone nel 2019 rispetto a 2,74 per 1000 persone nel 2018. Valori correnti, dati storici, previsioni, statistiche, grafici e calendario economico - Stati Uniti - Medici.

This statistic shows the total number of doctors of medicine in the United States from 1949 to 2015. In 1949, there were 201,277 doctors of medicine in the United States. Some 50 years later, the number was around four times as high. In 2015, the exact number of doctors of medicine was 1,085,783.

In 2019, there were around 73 active physicians per 10,000 civilians in the District of Columbia, followed by the state of Massachusetts with around 48 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.

Among the countries depicted, Cuba registered the highest density of physicians in 2018, with over 8.4 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile, Mexico and Brazil reported 2.38 and 2.16 physicians per 1,000 population, respectively.

In 2022, roughly three in ten surveyed physicians worked in medical practices that were fewer than five physicians in size. Another two in ten physicians were in practices of five to ten physicians, while 18.3 percent were in practices with 50 or more physicians. On the other hand, one in ten physicians surveyed were directly employed or contracted by a hospital.

U.S. physicians

The number of active doctors of medicine in the U.S. has increased dramatically in the past 50 years. Currently there are over a million active doctors in the United States. Among all U.S. states, California, followed by New York, was the state with the highest number of active physicians. It is estimated that there will be a deficit of over 121 thousand physicians by 2030.

Medical practices

Many sources indicate that physicians are moving away from private practice and into practices owned by hospitals or medical groups. In 2022, a minority of physicians were practice owners, partners or associates and over half of physicians were employed by someone else. In the same year, a majority of U.S. physicians said that they are at full capacity or overworked within their practices while only one fifth of physicians indicated that they had time to see more patients.

This statistic shows a ranking of the estimated average number of physicians per 1,000 inhabitants in 2020 in Latin America, differentiated by country.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in more than 150 countries and regions worldwide. All input data are sourced from international institutions, national statistical offices, and trade associations. All data has been are processed to generate comparable datasets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

In 2021, Finland had the highest number of practicing nurses per capita, for every 1,000 population there were 19 practicing nurses. This is followed by Switzerland and Norway. This statistic portrays the number of practicing nurses in selected countries as of 2021, per 1,000 population.

This statistic displays the number of oncologists per one million people in select countries as of 2018. According to the data, there were 161 oncologists per 1 million people in the U.S. and just 1 oncologist per 1 million people in India.

Orthopedic doctors and surgeons earn on average 558 thousand U.S. dollars annually. This makes Orthopedic doctors and surgeons the most well-compensated physicians in the United States as of 2024, followed by plastic surgeons. Plastic surgeons were, by far, the highest earning physicians in the U.S. in 2023. An orthopedic physician specializes in injuries and diseases involving bones, muscles, joints, nerves and other parts of the musculoskeletal system.

Physician salary

Although orthopedic doctors and surgeons have the highest average annual salary, from 2023 to 2024 their compensation actually decreased by 3 percent. In comparison, compensation for physicians specialized in physical medicine and rehabilitation increased 11 percent during this time, while plastic surgeons saw the largest decrease of 13 percent. The region with the highest annual compensation for physicians was West North Central in 2024, with physicians earning some 404 thousand U.S. dollars in this region.

Characteristics of U.S. physicians

There are currently around 29.2 active physicians per 10,000 people in the U.S. Around 29 percent of physicians in the U.S. are aged between 56 and 65 years, while only 11 percent are 35 years or younger. The vast majority of physicians are employed by hospitals or groups and work an average of 51 hours per week.

In 2024, Colombia's hospital infrastructure included nearly 2,600 hospitals, 3,100 operating rooms, and approximately 84,000 hospital beds. In 2023, Hospital Militar Central located in Bogotá was the Colombian hospital with the largest amount of operating rooms for carrying out medical procedures, with 24 units. Availability of healthcare resources As of 2024, there were 1.69 hospital beds available per 1,000 people in Colombia, a figure forecast to remain relatively stable in the coming years. That same year, there were 2.44 physicians per 1,000 population in the country. This number is expected to increase to 2.68 physicians per 1,000 population within the next five years. In relation to medical equipment, the most commonly found devices in the country are anesthesia, ultrasound, and x-ray machines. In contrast, there were only 13 PET systems available in the country in 2024. Expenditure on healthcare Around 9.25 percent of Colombia’s GDP in 2024 was allocated to health expenditure, forecast to grow to 9.62 percent by 2029. This signifies an increase in health expenditure from 38.59 billion USD in 2024 to an estimated 49.18 billion U.S. dollars by 2029. Similarly, per capita consumer spending on healthcare in the country is expected to grow from around 596 to nearly 872 U.S. dollars within the same time period.

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.

As of May 2024, there were a total of 65,752 active specialty physicians in California. This included some 7,895 psychiatrists and 2,257 oncologists.

This statistic depicts the percentage of U.S. community health center physician staff that worked in select specialties/areas, as of 2020. According to the data, 46 percent of physicians worked as family physicians.

The current healthcare spending per capita in Argentina was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 178.8 U.S. dollars (+14.26 percent). According to this forecast, in 2029, the spending will have increased for the fourth consecutive year to 1,432.6 U.S. dollars. Depicted here is the average per capita spending, in a given country or region, with regards to healthcare. The spending refers to the average current spending of both governments and consumers per inhabitant.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).Find more key insights for the current healthcare spending per capita in countries like Chile and Uruguay.