1 in 10 Canadian Emergency Physicians Have Left the Specialty: A Practical Guide for Patients and Healthcare Workers

What This Means for You

A physician workforce number rarely makes headlines, but the one published Monday, July 27, 2026, in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) is worth planning around: 10 per cent of a nationally representative sample of Canadian emergency physicians had left the specialty entirely, and nearly half had cut back their clinical hours, according to the study. Based on our review of the research and the practical implications for patients, healthcare workers, and rural communities, this is less a one-time news event than an early signal of tightening emergency capacity that will show up gradually as longer waits, more temporary ER closures in smaller communities, and heavier patient loads for the physicians who remain. Here is how to plan for it depending on your situation.

If You or a Family Member Rely on Emergency Care:

Immediate action:

Build a relationship with a family doctor or nurse practitioner now, before you need one urgently. A shrinking emergency physician workforce makes primary care access more valuable, not less, because a family doctor can often resolve a problem, arrange a specialist referral, or provide same-day advice without an ER visit. If you don't have one, most provinces run a central intake registry — for example, Health Care Connect in Ontario or the Provincial Attachment Tool in British Columbia — and registering costs nothing and takes about ten minutes.
Save your province's 24/7 nurse line in your phone. Every province operates a free telephone triage line — 811 in most provinces, Info-Santé in Quebec, HealthLink BC in British Columbia — staffed by registered nurses who can advise whether your symptoms need the emergency department, an urgent care clinic, a same-day appointment, or can safely wait. With fewer emergency physicians per shift, using the right entry point matters more than it used to.
Know your nearest urgent care or after-hours clinic, not just your nearest hospital. Urgent care centres handle fractures, deep cuts, minor burns, and most pediatric fevers without the wait times or overhead of a full emergency department, freeing genuinely emergency-level capacity for the patients who need it.

What to prepare:

Expect variability, not a uniform national decline. The CMAJ study surveyed physicians in every province and territory except Yukon and Nunavut, and burnout and attrition are not evenly distributed — the researchers found women and younger emergency physicians reported the highest burnout scores, which suggests the impact may concentrate in departments that rely more heavily on early-career staff, often smaller and rural sites.
If you live in a rural or small-community catchment area, ask your local hospital or health authority whether it has a published diversion or temporary-closure protocol. Many rural Canadian emergency departments already post advance notice on hospital websites or local social media when overnight coverage cannot be guaranteed; knowing where you would be diverted before an emergency happens saves critical time during one.
For chronic or ongoing conditions, ask your specialist's office about direct escalation pathways (a nurse line, a rapid-access clinic, or a direct admission process) that bypass the emergency department for known, recurring issues — many cancer, cardiac, and respiratory programs already offer these and they reduce load on general emergency care.

Resources:

National: Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians for public information on when to seek emergency versus urgent care.
Ontario: Health Care Connect (family doctor registry) and Health811.
British Columbia: HealthLink BC 811 and the Provincial Attachment Tool.
Quebec: Info-Santé 811.
Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI: dial 811 for the provincial nurse line.

Example scenario: A parent in a small town whose child spikes a fever of 39°C at 9 p.m. should call 811 or Info-Santé before driving to the regional emergency department. If the nurse line assesses the fever as low-risk, it can often recommend home monitoring or a next-morning clinic visit, avoiding a multi-hour wait in a department that, per the CMAJ findings, is increasingly likely to be staffed by fewer physicians relative to patient volume than it was three years ago.

If You're a Physician, Nurse, or Other Healthcare Worker Experiencing Burnout:

Immediate action:

Use your provincial physician or health-worker support line — these are confidential and separate from your employer or regulatory college. The Physician Health Program of BC (1-800-663-6729, 24/7), Alberta's Physician and Family Support Program (1-877-767-4637), and the Ontario Medical Association's Physician Health Program are staffed to help with exactly the exhaustion and depersonalization symptoms the CMAJ study measured, and contacting them does not automatically trigger a report to your regulatory college.
Review the CMAJ study's own recommendations, published alongside the survey, which call for structural changes such as more flexible scheduling models, protected non-clinical time, and workload caps rather than individual resilience training — useful language if you're advocating for changes at your own site.
If you've already reduced your hours or are considering it, talk to your provincial medical association about locum, part-time, and flexible-practice options before leaving the specialty outright; the study found many physicians who stayed did so by modifying their role rather than quitting entirely.

Resources:

CMA Physician Wellness Support Services — a national directory of every provincial and territorial physician health program.
Your provincial nurses' association or union, most of which run parallel confidential support lines for nursing staff facing similar emergency-department pressures.

For All Canadians:

If you serve on a hospital board, municipal council, or health advisory committee, ask specifically about emergency physician retention, not just recruitment. The CMAJ authors found that recruitment alone does not solve the problem if departing physicians are not replaced at the same rate they are leaving, particularly in smaller centres.
Support your local emergency department's use of appropriate alternatives (811, urgent care, walk-in clinics) even when you personally don't need them, since every low-acuity visit diverted from the ER preserves capacity for the physicians who remain.

The News: What Happened

According to a study published Monday, July 27, 2026, in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, 10 per cent of Canadian emergency physicians surveyed had left the specialty, while the majority of the remainder reported reducing their hours or taking time off to manage burnout. The research, led by Dr. Kerstin de Wit of Queen's University on behalf of the Network of Canadian Emergency Researchers, was based on a January 2025 survey that drew 410 responses from an initial pool of 615 emergency physicians — a 67 per cent response rate — spanning every Canadian province and territory except Yukon and Nunavut, according to CBC News.

Of the 410 respondents, 41 said they had left emergency medicine: 25 moved to a different area of practice, 10 retired, and six left clinical medicine altogether, CBC News reported. A further 48 per cent said they had reduced their clinical hours, and 20 per cent had taken time off work in emergency medicine at some point, according to the study as summarized by Global News. Sixty-five per cent of respondents scored high on standard measures of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, or both — core indicators of clinical burnout — with women and younger physicians reporting the highest levels, per the CMAJ findings.

Dr. de Wit told CBC News that "the prevailing theme was that the health care system is broken," with survey respondents repeatedly describing emergency departments as compensating for shortfalls elsewhere in the system with insufficient resources and support. The study's authors characterized the loss of emergency physicians as "a crisis for the Canadian system," according to the Globe and Mail's coverage of the findings. A companion commentary published alongside the study in CMAJ addresses what health systems and hospital administrators could do to slow the attrition.

Analysis: Why This Matters

Based on our analysis of the study's methodology and findings, the significance here is less the 10 per cent attrition figure in isolation and more what it represents structurally: a snapshot survey with a 67 per cent response rate, covering nearly every province and territory, found that roughly half of respondents had already changed how much they work in emergency medicine. Estimates of Canada's total emergency physician workforce vary — the Canadian Institute for Health Information has put the figure at roughly 3,750, while the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians estimates closer to 6,000 when including physicians who work emergency shifts alongside other practice — but under either estimate, a sustained 10 per cent attrition rate combined with reduced hours among those who stay represents a meaningful and compounding reduction in the physician-hours available to staff Canada's emergency departments.

Historical Context:

Emergency medicine burnout is not a new concern in Canada; provincial medical associations and CAEP have flagged workforce strain for several years, particularly through pandemic-era surge periods. What distinguishes this study is its longitudinal, survey-based design specifically tracking physicians who have already left or scaled back, rather than measuring burnout sentiment alone, which gives health planners a more concrete attrition figure to work from.

What Happens Next:

Expect provincial medical associations and hospital administrators to cite this study in ongoing negotiations over emergency department staffing models, on-call compensation, and scheduling flexibility over the coming months. Given that the study's authors explicitly call for structural fixes rather than individual wellness programming, healthcare workers and patient advocates watching this issue should look for concrete scheduling and staffing policy changes — not just messaging campaigns — as the real test of whether health authorities are responding to the findings.

Your Action Plan

Immediate (This Week):

Save your provincial 24/7 nurse line (811, Info-Santé, or HealthLink BC) in your phone
If you don't have a family doctor or nurse practitioner, register with your province's central intake service

Short-term (This Month):

If you live in a rural area, check your local hospital's website for any published emergency department diversion or temporary-closure notices
If you're a healthcare worker experiencing burnout, contact your provincial physician or health-worker support program confidentially

Long-term (This Year):

Identify your nearest urgent care or after-hours clinic for non-emergency issues, separate from your nearest hospital
If you sit on a hospital board or advisory committee, ask about emergency physician retention data, not just recruitment numbers

Other Perspectives

Researchers' View:

Dr. Kerstin de Wit and the Network of Canadian Emergency Researchers characterized the findings as evidence of a health system that is asking emergency departments to absorb shortfalls elsewhere, according to CBC News, and called the resulting attrition "a crisis for the Canadian system."

Health System Administrators:

Coverage of the study notes that hospital and health authority responses have historically emphasized recruitment campaigns and wellness programming; the CMAJ authors' companion commentary argues these measures are insufficient without structural changes to scheduling and workload, a distinction relevant to how administrators respond in the coming months.

Affected Physicians:

Survey respondents quoted in reporting described feeling that "the future of emergency medicine was hopeless, with no possibility of recovery," reflecting the depth of burnout captured in the data, according to coverage reviewed for this piece.

Patients and Rural Communities:

Patients in smaller communities are likely to feel workforce shortfalls first, through reduced overnight emergency department hours or temporary closures, a pattern rural health advocates have raised in prior physician-shortage reporting even before this specific study's release.

Note: Including multiple perspectives doesn't imply all views are equally valid, but ensures readers can make informed judgments.

Corrections Policy

We strive for accuracy. If you find an error in this analysis, please email us at [email protected]. We will promptly investigate and correct any factual inaccuracies.

Updates:

No corrections to date (as of July 27, 2026).