Leading U.S. states based on the number of active primary care physicians 2023

As of 2023, the states with the highest number of active primary care physicians were California, New York, and Texas. As of that time, there were over 55,300 active primary care physicians in the state of California.

Physicians by specialty

In the United States, the specialties with the highest number of active physicians include psychiatry, surgery, and emergency medicine. The most popular physician specialties in the state of California mirror this national trend. In 2020, California had over 7,300 psychiatrists and 5,400 surgeons.

Physician burn-out

Although being a physician can be a rewarding and lucrative profession, physicians often feel stressed and burned-out. In 2020, a survey of physicians in the U.S. found that 48 percent of female and 37 percent of male physicians felt burned out. The specialties that were most likely to express feeling burned out were urology, neurology, and nephrology.