Earlier this 12 months, as President Donald Trump was starting to reshape the American authorities, Michael, an emergency room physician who was born, raised, and skilled within the United States, packed up his household and received out.
Michael now works in a small-town hospital in Canada. KFF Health News and NPR granted him anonymity due to fears he may face reprisal from the Trump administration if he returns to the U.S. He mentioned he feels some guilt that he didn’t keep to withstand the Trump agenda however is assured in his determination to depart. Too a lot of America has merely grown too comfy with violence and cruelty, he mentioned.
“Part of being a physician is being kind to people who are in their weakest place,” Michael mentioned. “And I feel like our country is devolving to really step on people who are weak and vulnerable.”
Michael is amongst a brand new wave of docs who’re leaving the United States to flee the Trump administration. In the months since Trump was reelected and returned to the White House, American docs have proven skyrocketing curiosity in turning into licensed in Canada, the place dozens greater than regular have already been cleared to follow, based on Canadian licensing officers and recruiting companies.
The Medical Council of Canada mentioned in an e-mail assertion that the variety of American docs creating accounts on physiciansapply.ca, which is “typically the first step” to being licensed in Canada, has elevated greater than 750% over the previous seven months in contrast with the identical time interval final 12 months — from 71 candidates to 615. Separately, medical licensing organizations in Canada’s most populous provinces reported an increase in Americans both making use of for or receiving Canadian licenses, with at the least some docs disclosing they had been shifting particularly due to Trump.
“The doctors that we are talking to are embarrassed to say they’re Americans,” mentioned John Philpott, CEO of CanAm Physician Recruiting, which recruits docs into Canada. “They state that right out of the gate: ‘I have to leave this country. It is not what it used to be.’”
Canada, which has common publicly funded well being care, has lengthy been an possibility for U.S.-trained docs in search of a substitute for the American well being care system. While it was as soon as tougher for American docs to follow in Canada as a consequence of discrepancies in medical schooling requirements, Canadian provinces have relaxed some licensing rules in recent times, and a few are expediting licensing for U.S.-trained physicians.
In mere months, the Trump administration has jeopardized the economy with tariffs, ignored court orders and due process, and threatened the sovereignty of U.S. allies, including Canada. The administration has additionally taken steps that will unnerve docs particularly, together with appointing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to steer federal well being companies, shifting cash away from pandemic preparedness, discouraging gender-affirming care, demonizing fluoride, and supporting deep cuts to Medicaid.
The Trump administration didn’t present any remark for this text. When requested to reply to docs’ leaving the U.S. for Canada, White House spokesperson Kush Desai requested whether or not KFF Health News knew the exact variety of docs and their “citizenship status,” then supplied no additional remark. KFF Health News didn’t have or present this data.
Philpott, who based CanAm Physician Recruiting within the Nineties, mentioned the cross-border motion of American and Canadian docs has for many years ebbed and flowed in response to political and financial fluctuations, however that the pull towards Canada has by no means been as sturdy as now.
Philpott mentioned CanAm had seen a 65% improve in American docs searching for Canadian jobs from January to April, and that the corporate has been contacted by as many as 15 American docs a day.
Rohini Patel, a CanAm recruiter and physician, mentioned some take into account pay cuts to maneuver shortly.
“They’re ready to move to Canada tomorrow,” she mentioned. “They are not concerned about what their income is.”
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, which handles licensing in Canada’s most populous province, mentioned in a press release that it registered 116 U.S.-trained docs within the first quarter of 2025 — a rise of at the least 50% over the prior two quarters. Ontario additionally obtained license functions from about 260 U.S.-trained docs within the first quarter of this 12 months, the group mentioned.
British Columbia, one other populous province, noticed a surge of licensure functions from U.S.-trained docs after Election Day, based on an e-mail assertion from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia. The assertion additionally mentioned the group licensed 28 such docs within the fiscal 12 months that led to February — triple the overall of the prior 12 months.
Quebec’s College of Physicians mentioned functions from U.S.-trained docs have elevated, together with the variety of Canadian docs getting back from America to follow inside the province, but it surely didn’t present specifics. In a press release, the group mentioned some candidates had been attempting to get permitted to follow in Canada “specifically because of the actual presidential administration.”
Michael, the doctor who moved to Canada this 12 months, mentioned he had lengthy been cautious of what he described as escalating right-ring political rhetoric and unchecked gun violence within the United States, the latter of which he witnessed firsthand throughout a decade working in American emergency rooms.
Michael mentioned he started contemplating the transfer as Trump was operating for reelection in 2020. His breaking level got here on Jan. 6, 2021, when a violent mob of Trump supporters besieged the U.S. Capitol in an try to cease the certification of the election of Joe Biden as president.
“Civil discourse was falling apart,” he mentioned. “I had a conversation with my family about how Biden was going to be a one-term president and we were still headed in a direction of being increasingly radicalized toward the right and an acceptance of vigilantism.”
It then took a few 12 months for Michael to turn out to be licensed in Canada, then longer for him to finalize his job and transfer, he mentioned. While the licensing course of was “not difficult,” he mentioned, it did require him to acquire licensed paperwork from his medical college and residency program.
“The process wasn’t any harder than getting your first license in the United States, which is also very bureaucratic,” Michael mentioned. “The difference is, I think most people practicing in the U.S. have got so much administrative fatigue that they don’t want to go through that process again.”
Michael mentioned he now receives near-daily emails or texts from American docs who’re in search of recommendation about shifting to Canada.
This want to depart has additionally been putting to Hippocratic Adventures, a small enterprise that helps American docs follow drugs in different international locations.
The firm was co-founded by Ashwini Bapat, a Yale-educated physician who moved to Portugal in 2020 partly as a result of she was “terrified that Trump would win again.” For years, Hippocratic Adventures catered to physicians with wanderlust, guiding them by the forms of getting licensed in international nations or conducting telemedicine from afar, Bapat mentioned.
But after Trump was reelected, prospects had been not in search of grand travels throughout the globe, Bapat mentioned. Now they had been looking for the closest emergency exit, she mentioned.
“Previously it had been about adventure,” Bapat mentioned. “But the biggest spike that we saw, for sure, hands down, was when Trump won reelection in November. And then Inauguration Day. And basically every single day since then.”
At least one Canadian province is actively advertising and marketing itself to American docs.
Doctors Manitoba, which represents physicians within the rural province that struggles with considered one of Canada’s worst physician shortages, launched a recruiting marketing campaign after the election to capitalize on Trump and the rise of far-right politics within the U.S.
The marketing campaign focuses on Florida and North and South Dakota and advertises “zero political interference in physician patient relationship” as a promoting level.
Alison Carleton, a household drugs physician who moved from Iowa to Manitoba in 2017, mentioned she left to flee the day by day grind of America’s for-profit well being care system and since she was appalled that Trump was elected the primary time.
Carleton mentioned she now runs a small-town clinic with low stress, much less paperwork, and no worry of burying her sufferers in medical debt.
She dropped her American citizenship final 12 months.
“People I know have said, ‘You left just in time,’” Carleton mentioned. “I tell people, ‘I know. When are you going to move?’”
Brett Kelman:
[email protected],
@BrettKelman
Oona Zenda:
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