Characteristics of physicians-in-training and nontrainee physicians who are members of the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA) and of physicians-in-training in the Canadian Post-MD Education Registry*, 2008–2017
| Characteristic | No. (%) of physicians-in-training | No. (%) of nontrainee physicians | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CMPA physicians-in-training named in a civil legal case n = 951† | Physicians-in-training listed in CAPER n = 50 602 | CMPA nontrainee physicians named in a civil legal case n = 24 012 | All CMPA nontrainee physicians n = 121 902‡ | |
| Region§ | ||||
| Ontario | 700 (73.6) | 21856 (43.2) | 12126 (50.5) | 46201 (37.9) |
| British Columbia and Alberta | 174 (18.2) | 10969 (21.7) | 5211 (21.7) | 30719 (25.2) |
| Saskatchewan, Manitoba, territories and Atlantic provinces | 72 (7.6) | 5773 (11.4) | 4370 (18.2) | 16335 (13.4) |
| Quebec | 5 (0.5) | 12004 (23.7) | 2305 (9.6) | 28647 (23.5) |
| Specialty¶ | ||||
| Family medicine | 84 (8.8) | 14469 (28.6) | 5418 (22.6) | 51091 (41.9) |
| Nonsurgical specialties | ||||
| Internal medicine | 87 (9.1) | 5931 (11.7) | 887 (3.7) | 4564 (3.7) |
| Diagnostic radiology | 36 (3.8) | 2127 (4.2) | 1531 (6.4) | 3671 (3.0) |
| Emergency medicine | 34 (3.6) | 931 (1.8) | 2039 (8.5) | 6454 (5.3) |
| Critical care | 27 (2.8) | 321 (0.6) | 255 (1.1) | 1221 (1.0) |
| Neurology | 23 (2.4) | 228 (0.4) | 333 (1.4) | 1378 (1.1) |
| Cardiology | 22 (2.3) | 985 (2.0) | 462 (1.9) | 2034 (1.7) |
| Psychiatry | 22 (2.3) | 2660 (5.3) | 851 (3.5) | 7366 (6.0) |
| Pediatrics | 21 (2.2) | 2126 (4.2) | 586 (2.4) | 4009 (3.3) |
| Nephrology | 14 (1.5) | 326 (0.6) | 142 (0.6) | 781 (0.6) |
| Gastroenterology | 11 (1.2) | 303 (0.6) | 329 (1.4) | 1266 (1.0) |
| Other nonsurgical specialties | 39 (4.1) | 7801 (15.4) | 1335 (5.6) | 14342 (11.8) |
| Surgical specialties | ||||
| Obstetrics and gynecology | 120 (12.6) | 1455 (2.9) | 1916 (8.0) | 3380 (2.8) |
| General surgery | 109 (11.5) | 1940 (3.8) | 1889 (7.9) | 2460 (2.0) |
| Neurosurgery | 63 (6.6) | 636 (1.3) | 390 (1.6) | 376 (0.3) |
| Orthopedic surgery | 61 (6.4) | 1872 (3.7) | 1383 (5.8) | 1813 (1.5) |
| Anesthesiology | 52 (5.5) | 2605 (5.1) | 1032 (4.3) | 4552 (3.7) |
| Urology | 36 (3.8) | 658 (1.3) | 429 (1.8) | 858 (0.7) |
| Otolaryngology | 24 (2.5) | 661 (1.3) | 354 (1.5) | 907 (0.7) |
| Plastic surgery | 17 (1.8) | 557 (1.1) | 835 (3.5) | 792 (0.6) |
| Ophthalmology | 14 (1.5) | 931 (1.8) | 621 (2.6) | 1521 (1.2) |
| Cardiac surgery | 13 (1.4) | 420 (0.8) | 154 (0.6) | 264 (0.2) |
| Vascular surgery | 12 (1.3) | 115 (0.2) | 203 (0.8) | 265 (0.2) |
| Other surgical specialties | 10 (1.1) | 544 (1.1) | 638 (2.7) | 3569 (2.9) |
| Practice** | ||||
| On call | ||||
| Yes | 502 (52.8) | – | – | – |
| No | 301 (31.7) | – | – | – |
| Unknown | 148 (15.6) | – | – | – |
| On service | ||||
| Yes | 725 (76.2) | – | – | – |
| No | 144 (15.1) | – | – | – |
| Unknown | 82 (8.6) | – | – | – |
| Postgraduate status | ||||
| PGY 1 | 175 (18.4) | – | – | – |
| PGY 2 | 194 (20.4) | – | – | – |
| PGY 3 | 166 (17.5) | – | – | – |
| PGY 4 | 123 (12.9) | – | – | – |
| PGY 5–7 | 112 (11.8) | – | – | – |
| Fellow | 170 (17.9) | – | – | – |
| Unknown | 11 (1.2) | – | – | – |
Note: CAPER = Canadian Post-M.D. Education Registry, CMPA = Canadian Medical Protective Association, PGY = postgraduate year.
↵* Each year, CAPER, a branch of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada responsible for collecting and reporting data from all of the 17 Canadian residency programs, collects a census file of all physicians-in-training enrolled in post-MD education in Canada directly from the 17 medical faculties. The data files undergo thorough data validation and quality checks (both cross-sectional and longitudinal) by CAPER staff. Each medical faculty is provided a data verification package for their review and approval before the data are integrated into the CAPER database. We selected the use of CAPER data because, as Canada’s main source of routinely collected, administrative data on residency programs, it provides some physician-level variables that are comparable with those presented in the current analysis.
↵† Subgroup of named CMPA physicians-in-training with information available for analysis (i.e., specialty and training level were specified in the CMPA data). These physicians-in-training were named in 558 cases.
↵‡ Total also includes 2968 (2.4%) nonpractising CMPA physician members working in an administrative medicine role.
↵§ CMPA data infrastructure required us to group cases according to the CMPA’s fee-based geographic regions: Quebec, Ontario, Western Canada (Alberta and British Columbia) and the rest of Canada (Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Atlantic Canada and the territories).
↵¶ Given the relatively small size of many specialty programs, we report only the cases grouped by specialty when more than 10 physicians-in-training from that specialty were named. We amalgamated case specialty groups with fewer than 10 physicians-in-training under the categories “other nonsurgical specialties” and “other surgical specialties.”
↵** These practice characteristics were unavailable from CAPER and for nontrainee physicians.