KevinMD January 2, 2026
America’s physician shortage is no longer a distant projection. It is happening now, steadily, one resignation, early retirement, and practice closure at a time.
A nationwide, longitudinal analysis published in Annals of Internal Medicine tracked more than 712,000 physicians caring for Medicare patients over a decade and found a troubling trend: Physician attrition from clinical practice rose from 3.5 percent in 2013 to 4.9 percent in 2019, across every specialty, region, age group, and gender. That increase may sound modest, until it is paired with projections estimating a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036.
What makes this study particularly sobering is not just the numbers, but where the losses are concentrated. Psychiatry, primary care, and obstetrics/gynecology (the specialties...
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