New doctor registrations slow under UCP

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

According to the College, there were 11,632 registered physicians at the end of March 2024. That’s a net decrease of 106 over the previous quarter and a net increase of 500 over the same period in 2023.

Of the 18 communities listed in their report, 10 saw a net increase of registered physicians over the last quarter. Medicine Hat had the largest net increase, at 7, followed by Lethbridge, at 3. “Other locations” collectively saw an increase of 28 physician registrations, however. Edmonton saw the largest decrease, having lost 120 registrations. Calgary had the second largest, losing 26.

That quarterly net decrease of 106 was a result of 265 new registrations and 371 cancellations:

Of the new registrations, 23 were for physicians who returned to Alberta and 161 who were trained outside of Alberta. When we compare that with the 24 who left Alberta, we get a net migration of 160 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
Jan–Mar 2023	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 fourth quarters together. First, we’ll compare fourth quarter registrations to third quarter registrations.

Alberta always sees a decrease in the first quarter of the year, so the fact that we had a decrease last quarter isn’t necessarily a cause for concern.

This is because the first quarter is when the college learns how many physicians don’t plan to renew their licenses.

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

Keep in mind, however, that this comes after the three largest first-quarter decreases in registrations, which means that, over the last 4 first quarters, we’ve seen only a 1.82% overall decrease. That’s an average of 0.46% per year and still below the first 5 first quarters of this reporting period.

We’re going to need more than one good quarter to make up for the large losses in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Here are the 8 first quarters with how much they’ve changed from the previous first quarter.

Physician registrations in the first quarter this year were the third 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 1,113, or 10.58%.

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 6 percentage points more than what we’ve seen under the UCP.

In other words, Alberta saw 400 more physician registrations in 4 years under the NDP than they have in 5 years under the UCP.

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

Well, 41 of the 225 new registrations were from people trained in the province, compared to 28 in 2023. 161 were new registrations from outside Alberta and 38 were “restored”. In 2023, those numbers were 116 and 19, respectively, in the first quarter.

There were 38 registrations for physicians who returned to Alberta, compared to 19 in 2023. However, 24 of the 371 cancelled registrations were from physicians who left the province, as I pointed out earlier, leaving a net migration gain of 160 physicians when added to the 161 registrations from physicians trained from outside Alberta.

Of the remaining 347 cancellations, 94 retired and 2 died, compared to 99 and 0 in 2022. As well, there were 215 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 283 in the firt quarter of 2021.

Finally, 36 physicians voluntarily erased their registrations. During the fourth quarter of 2022, 51 did so.

Oh, and I just want to point out that out of those 11,632 registered physicians, only 4,039 are registered in family medicine, which works out to be about 1 family doctor for every 1,176 residents.

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