New doctor registrations in AB lower than under NDP

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta recently released their second quarter Physician Resources in Alberta update for 2024.

According to the College, there were 11,756 registered physicians at the end of June 2024. That’s a net increase of 124 over the previous quarter and a net increase of 496 over the same period in 2023.

Of the 18 communities listed in their report, 11 saw a net increase of registered physicians over the last quarter. Unsurprisingly, Calgary, the largest city in the province, had the largest net increase, at 55, followed by Edmonton, at 30. “Other locations” collectively saw an increase of 11 physician registrations, however. Fort Saskatchewan saw the largest decrease, having lost 3 registrations.

That quarterly net decrease of 106 was a result of 159 new registrations and 35 cancellations:

Of the new registrations, 22 were for physicians who returned to Alberta and 110 who were trained outside of Alberta. When we compare that with the 1 who left Alberta, we get a net migration of 131 physicians into the province. Remember, that is for registrations. Theoretically, a doctor could leave Alberta but maintain their registration in the province.

The numbers reflect the physicians who maintained an active licence within the applicable quarter; it cannot be interpreted as those who are actively practising. . . . These counts do not necessarily reflect physicians’ functional area of practice, or even if they have an active clinical practice.

“Methodology”. Physician Resources in Alberta Quarterly Update: Oct 01, 2020 to Dec 30, 2021, pp. 1,3.

Let’s look at the registration numbers over the last 5 years or so (I couldn’t find any CPSA data beyond 2016):

Quarter	Number	Change
Apr–Jun 2024	11,756	1.07%
Jan–Mar 2024	11,632	-0.9%
Oct–Dec 2023	11,738	1.1%
Jul–Sep 2023	11,608	3.1%
Apr–Jun 2023	11,260	1.2%
Jan–Mar 2023	11,132	-2.4%
Oct–Dec 2022	11,407	0.5%
Jul–Sep 2022	11,346	2.5%
Apr–Jun 2022	11,069	0.9%
Jan–Mar 2022	10,965	-1.7%
Oct–Dec 2021	11,153	-0.1%
Jul–Sep 2021	11,167	2.2%
Apr–Jun 2021	10,927	0.6%
Jan–Mar 2021	10,866	-2.3%
Oct–Dec 2020	11,120	-0.3%
Jul–Sep 2020	11,152	2.3%
Apr–Jun 2020	10,905	0.9%
Jan–Mar 2020	10,812	-1.2%
Oct–Dec 2019	10,948	0.4%
Jul–Sep 2019	10,906	2.9%
Apr–Jun 2019	10,599	0.8%
Jan–Mar 2019	10,519	-1.5%
Oct–Dec 2018	10,674	0.4%
Jul–Sep 2018	10,630	2.7%
Apr–Jun 2018	10,351	0.7%
Jan–Mar 2018	10,274	-1.0%
Oct–Dec 2017	10,376	0.0%
Jul–Sep 2017	10,379	2.9%
Apr–Jun 2017	10,088	1.0%
Jan–Mar 2017	9,991	-0.6%
Oct–Dec 2016	10,048	0.0%
Jul–Sep 2016	10,043	3.4%
Apr–Jun 2016	9,713	1.2%
Jan–Mar 2016	9,596	-1.2%

Let’s look at all the second quarters together. First, we’ll compare second quarter registrations to first quarter registrations.

Alberta always sees an increase in the second quarter of the year, so the fact that we had a increase last quarter isn’t necessarily a cause for celebration.

Which is why we must put the decrease in context. As we see from the above chart, last quarter’s increase was the third largest increase of any second quarter since at least 2016.

Keep in mind, however, that this comes after the five smallest first-quarter decreases in registrations, which means that, over the last 4 first quarters, we’ve seen only a 6.1% overall increase. That’s an average of 0.87% per year and still below the first 2 second quarters of this reporting period.

We’re going to need more than two quarters to make up for the large reductions in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

Here are the 9 second quarters with how much they’ve changed from the previous second quarter.

Physician registrations in the second quarter this year were the second best we’ve seen since 2016 and the highest ever under the UCP—by a long shot.

Since the first quarter of 2019, the last quarter before the UCP took power, Alberta physician registrations grew by 1,237, or 11.76%%.

By comparison, during the 4 years prior (first quarter of 2015 until fourth quarter of 2018), Alberta saw a net increase of 1,513 physician registration under the NDP. That’s an increase of 16.52%, roughly 5 percentage points more than what we’ve seen under the UCP.

In other words, Alberta saw 300 more physician registrations in 4 years under the NDP than they have in 5 years under the UCP.

Now how do the second quarter registrations break down by where they came from and where they went to?

Well, 25 of the 159 new registrations were from people trained in the province, compared to 34 in 2023. 110 were new registrations from outside Alberta and 22 were “restored”. In 2023, those numbers were 86 and 18, respectively, in the second quarter.

There were 2 registrations for physicians who returned to Alberta, compared to 6 in 2023. However, 1 of the 371 cancelled registrations was from physicians who left the province, as I pointed out earlier, leaving a net migration gain of 111 physicians when added to the 110 registrations from physicians trained from outside Alberta.

Of the remaining 33 cancellations, 5 retired and 3 died, compared to 6 and 3 in 2022. As well, there were 22 removed registrations. These were for physicians who were suspended or were licensed for a limited period and have since been removed from the register. This number was 6 in the second quarter of 2023.

Finally, 4 physicians voluntarily erased their registrations. During the second quarter of 2023, 1 did so.

Oh, and I just want to point out that out of those 11,756 registered physicians, only 4,095 are registered in family medicine, which works out to be about 1 family doctor for every 1,184 residents.

At the end of June 2023, Alberta had 1 family doctor for every 1,195 residents.