Data
on physician characteristics are obtained through physician self-report
for the American
Medical Association's Physican Masterfile.
Active (or
professionally active) physiciansare
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 physiciansare
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
physiciansare
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.