Fewer doctors, more female doctors
39,900 doctors were employed in Switzerland in 2017. This total number is increasing despite different reports on the number of doctors. Due to the increase in part-time work, an increase in full-time positions does not automatically follow from this. Many doctors will retire in the coming years, emphasises the FMH Physicians' Statistic 2017.
It would be too simple to distinguish only between male and female doctors. For example, every third doctor comes from abroad. Many Swiss family doctors are retiring. To ensure security of supply, Switzerland will have to train more male and female doctors in the future. Nevertheless, female doctors are on the increase.
Female doctors on the rise
At 58.0 percent, men continue to make up the majority of the medical profession. However, at 3.8 percent, the increase over the previous year for female physicians is significantly higher than that for male physicians (0.9 percent).
The outpatient sector is characterised by a high average age
51.1 percent of physicians work in the outpatient sector1, 47.3 percent in the inpatient2 and 1.6 percent work outside these sectors. While the average age of all physicians is 48.4 years, it is on average ten years higher in the outpatient sector than in the inpatient sector (54.8 years compared to 43.4 years).
The age difference between the sectors is mainly due to the further training of assisting physicians, which mainly takes place in hospitals. In the age groups below 40, women are overrepresented in both sectors. Due to the majority of women among the students, it can be assumed that this development will be reflected in the gender-specific age structure in the coming years.
53.7 percent of physicians in the outpatient sector work in individual practices. This proportion has decreased by a good 8 percent over the last ten years. An average of 4.2 doctors work in group practices. The average workload in the outpatient sector is 8.1 half days, more than half a day less than in the inpatient sector (9.5 half days). Due to the increasing part-time work and due to the upcoming retirement of many physicians who work far more than 40 hours per week in their practices, Switzerland needs to train more physicians.
The stationary sector and specialists are concentrated in the cities
In the granting of specialist titles (1526 new titles last year), the share of the generalist specialties of general internal medicine, paediatrics and adolescent medicine and general practitioner, together account for 37.9 per cent. Doctors with these specialist titles are counted among the so-called primary care providers.
General internal medicine is the most frequently represented specialty (22.5 percent). In second place is psychiatry and psychotherapy (10.2%), followed by gynaecology and obstetrics (5.0%), paediatrics and adolescent medicine (5.0%) and anaesthesiology (4.2%). The density of specialists in the cities is twice as high as that of primary care providers.
In rural areas, the situation is exactly the opposite. On average, there are 4.3 doctors per 1000 people in Switzerland. There are significantly more doctors available in urban areas than in rural areas. Since hospitals are mainly located in urban areas, the density of doctors in the inpatient sector is high there and low in rural areas.
34.1 percent of working physicians in Switzerland come from abroad, 29.3 percent in the outpatient sector and 47.3 percent in the inpatient sector. The majority of foreign doctors come from Germany (54.4 percent), followed by Italy (8.6 percent), France (6.5 percent) and Austria (6.1 percent).
Further information:
"FMH Physician Statistics 2017 - Current Figures"., Stefanie Hostettler, Esther Kraft, Swiss Medical Journal No. 13/14, 28.3.2018.
