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U.S. Physician Workforce Data Dashboard

2025 Key Findings

Key Findings

What follows are the key findings from the 2025 release of the U.S. Physician Workforce Data Dashboard:

The location of the physician’s office was used to determine whether an active physician is in the United States. In cases where the physician’s office location was missing, the state from the preferred mailing address was used. This substitution occurred for approximately 14.2% of cases among all active physicians in 2024.

  • In 2024, the specialties with the largest numbers of active physicians were the primary care specialties of internal medicine, family medicine/general practice, and pediatrics (refer to Physicians by Specialty & Location).
  • In 2024, the United States had 1,032,365 active physicians of which 866,460 were direct patient care physicians, corresponding to 304 and 255 physicians per 100,000 population respectively. States in the Northeast had the highest numbers of both active and direct patient care physicians per population (refer to Physician Density by Specialty & Location).
    • Among states and territories, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia had the highest number of both active and direct patient care physicians per population. In contrast, Idaho and Northern Mariana Islands had the lowest number of active physicians. Mississippi and the Northern Mariana Islands had the lowest number of direct patient care physicians (refer to Physician Density by Specialty & Location).
    • Nationally, there were six direct patient care general surgeons per 100,000 population. The District of Columbia had the highest number of direct patient care general surgeons per 100,000 population (12), followed by Wyoming (11), Maine, West Virginia, and New Hampshire (10 each). The Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa had the lowest number (0), followed by Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Nevada (five each) (Physician Density by Specialty & Location).
  • In 2024, 25.6% of active physicians were international medical graduates (refer to Physicians by Specialty). States and territories varied widely in the percentage of their physician workforce that graduated from an international medical school.
    • Guam, New Jersey, Florida, Northern Mariana Islands, and New York had the highest percentages (42.8%, 37.2%, 36.7%, 36.4%, and 36.2%, respectively), while Idaho (7.2%) had the lowest percentage of international medical graduates (refer to Physicians by Specialty).
  • In 2024, more than one-third (38.7%) of the active physician workforce was female (refer Physicians by Specialty). Pediatrics (66.7%), obstetrics and gynecology (64.1%), and hospice and palliative medicine (63.1%) had the highest percentages of female physicians, while sports medicine (orthopedic surgery) and orthopedic surgery (7.8% and 6.8%, respectively) had the lowest percentages (refer to Physicians by Specialty & Location).
    • The highest percentages of female physicians were in the District of Columbia (50.6%), the U.S. Virgin Islands (47.2%), and Massachusetts (45.5%). American Samoa had the lowest percentage of female physicians at 0%, followed by the Northern Mariana Islands (masked due to small cell sizes, less than 20%) and Utah (27.4%; refer to Physicians by Specialty & Location).
    • Note: The American Medical Association Physician Professional Data define gender as “male” or “female.” Therefore, these analyses are limited to those categories.
  • In 2024, 23.9% of active physicians were aged 65 or older (refer to Physicians by Specialty). The percentages of this age group in individual specialties ranged from 73.6% in pulmonary disease to 2.6% in clinical neurophysiology (refer to Physicians by Specialty & Location).
    • The Northern Mariana Islands (54.6%) and Puerto Rico (40.7%) had the highest percentages of physicians aged 65 and older. Utah had the lowest percentage of physicians older than 65 years (17.0%), followed by Minnesota (19.6%; refer to Physicians by Specialty & Location).
  • In 2024, 16.9% of active physicians were under age 40 (refer to Physicians by Specialty). The percentages of this age group in individual specialties ranged from 35.3% in hospice and palliative medicine to 0.6% in pulmonary disease (refer to Physicians by Specialty).
    • The District of Columbia (21.5%) and Michigan (21.4%) had the highest percentages of physicians under age 40. American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands had 0 physicians under age 40. The U.S. Virgin Islands had the lowest percentage (masked due to small cell sizes, less than 10%; (refer to Physicians by Specialty & Location).
  • In 2024, 56.1% of active physicians identified as White, 19.8% as Asian, 6.7% as Hispanic or Latino (alone or in combination), 5.3% as Black or African American, 1.6% as Multiracial (non-Hispanic), 1.2% as Other, and less than 1% as American Indian or Alaska Native (0.3%) or Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (0.1%). The percentage of physicians with an unknown race or ethnicity was 9.1% (refer to Physicians by Specialty).
  • In the late 1980s, pulmonary disease evolved into what is now known as pulmonary critical care. The decrease in physicians in this specialty is likely due to pulmonary critical care replacing pulmonary disease (refer to Physicians by Specialty).

Physician Retention

  • In 2024, 37.6% of U.S. physicians were practicing in the same state where they completed undergraduate medical education (UME) (median, 39.0%), driven primarily by retention from public medical schools. For U.S. public medical schools, the 2024 retention rate was 45.7% (median, 43.6%; refer to Physician Retention by Location & Training).
    • Among states and territories with both public and private medical schools, the percentage of physicians retained from UME was highest in California, Texas, and Arkansas, and lowest in Vermont, Maryland, and Iowa (refer to Physician Retention by Location & Training).
  • In 2024, 47.0% of U.S. physicians were practicing in the same state where they completed their most recent Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) -accredited training program (median, 44.1%). Retention percentages were highest in California (70.6%), Puerto Rico (69.9%), Alaska (62.0%), and lowest in the District of Columbia (14.3%), Rhode Island (27.7%), and Delaware (27.8%) (refer to Physician Retention by Location & Training).
  • Nationally, more than two-thirds (67.5%) of physicians who completed both UME and ACGME-accredited training programs in the same state remained in that state to practice (median, 68.4%). This percentage was highest in Hawaii (87.8%), California (81.7%), and Texas (80.7%). The remaining states and territories had percentages of 40% or greater, except for New Hampshire (37.4%) and the District of Columbia, which had the lowest percentage at 17.6% (refer to Physician Retention by Location & Training).