American doctors a welcome addition

Manitoba’s NDP government should be applauded for recruiting 33 new physicians from the United States. At the same time, Premier Wab Kinew and all the people in government — from ministers to recruiters working in the Health Care Retention and Recruitment Office — should be urged to double down on existing efforts to help ease the doctor shortage.

Just about every province is suffering a physician shortage and that means just about every province is competing with Manitoba for estranged and disillusioned health-care professionals who may seek an escape from the war on health care and science triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump. Complicating matters is that there is a lot more tire-kicking than actual recruitment going on.

The Medical Council of Canada has reported on a huge increase in the number of U.S. medical school graduates opening an account on physiciansapply.ca, a recruitment portal for international medical graduates (IMGs) who are considering a move to Canada. Just about every province is reporting that those expressions of interest are translating into at least some confirmed recruitments.

Nova Scotia has licensed 19 U.S physicians this year, a nearly 75 per cent increase from the year before. Alberta has received about 75 applications for a medical licence, nearly double its normal intake. British Columbia, long a destination for American expats, has done a bit better, with 130 health-care professionals of all designations coming to the province. And Ontario, our largest province, has seen 251 American physicians relocate, the most of any province.

In the context of the recruitment results in other provinces, Manitoba is doing fine. Maybe OK is the right term. But for a province that has lingered near the bottom of the physician-per-capita metric, fine or OK may not be enough.

According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canada has, on a national basis, roughly 240 physicians per 100,000 people. Manitoba typically reports among the lowest or second-lowest total number of physicians at roughly 215 per 100,000. And that’s even with tangible progress over the past five years or so.

Between April 2024 and 2025, Manitoba saw a net gain of 164 physicians, increasing the total number of physicians to nearly 3,500. That would be the largest net gain in nearly a quarter of a century. It’s also promising that three-quarters of medical school graduates elect to do their residency in Manitoba, a key trend in retaining physicians after they have completed all their training.

It should be noted that Manitoba recognizes that the current flow of physicians out of the U.S. is an unprecedented opportunity. This past spring, the province took steps to make the road to a medical licence in Canada more attractive. New regulations approved in the spring allow U.S.-trained physicians who have completed a residency and obtained a medical licence to move effectively into full practice in Manitoba.

These are measures that many other provinces have also introduced to ensure the pathway is as easy and effortless as possible.

It’s all very, very promising. But in the war to recruit and retain physicians, Manitoba’s recruitment of 33 American doctors is still, in relative terms, a very small number.

As political tensions in the U.S. rise, and men and women of science and medicine continue to feel marginalized or even disparaged, more American physicians will be looking for an off-ramp.

It remains to seen if the sign Manitoba is waving on that off-ramp is big enough to ease our chronic physician shortage.

» Winnipeg Free Press