Physician resource databank: numbers, distribution and activities of Canada's physicians.

The physician resource databank, compiled and maintained by the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), contains functional information from 41 599 of Canada's licensed physicians. The information was gathered from a 20-item questionnaire sent to 47 162 physicians. Of the total, 38 653 responses came from physicians who had completed their training and these were included in the analysis to produce a profile of the supply of physicians in Canada. The data from physicians younger than 35 years indicate some changes in the structure of the supply: 27% are women (compared with only about 9% of physicians older than 45 years).The implications of these statistics are not yet clear, but within the next decade the numbers in some specialties-surgery, anesthesia, obstetrics and gynecology, and radiology-may be too few to meet the demand as more than 20% of the current practitioners reach retirement age. Other findings are that [List: see text]