Physician

Data on physician characteristics are obtained through physician self-report for the American Medical Association's Physican Masterfile.

Active (or professionally active) physicians are currently engaged in patient care or other professional activity for a minimum of 20 hours per week. Other professional activity includes administration, medical teaching, research, and other activities, such as employment with insurance carriers, pharmaceutical companies, corporations, voluntary organizations, medical societies, and the like. Physicians who are retired, semi-retired, working part-time, or not practicing are classified as inactive and are excluded. Also excluded are physicians with address unknown and physicians who did not provide information on type of practice or present employment (not classified). 

Federal physicians are those employed full time by the Federal Government, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Veterans' Administration, Public Health Service, and other federally-funded agencies. The majority of U.S. physicians are employed outside the Federal Government (97.4 percent).

Hospital-based physicians are employed under contract with hospitals to provide direct patient care and include physicians in residency training (including clinical fellows) and full-time members of the hospital staff.

Office-based physicians are engaged in seeing patients in solo practice, group practice, two-physician practice, other patient care employment, or inpatient services such as those provided by pathologists and radiologists. 

Data for physicians are presented by type of education (doctors of medicine and doctors of osteopathy); place of education (U.S. medical graduates and international medical graduates); activity status (professionally active and inactive); employment setting (Federal and non-Federal); area of specialty; and geographic area. 

SOURCE: Health, United States

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This page last reviewed September 10, 2008