Why some female physicians are eyeing a move to Canada from the U.S.

Abortion rights activists and Women's March leaders protest as part of a national day of strike actions outside the Supreme Court, Monday, June 24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Some female physicians in the U.S. are considering moving north of the border to practice medicine due to the changing political landscape in their country.

“Anyone looking for a part-time gynecologist in Ontario?” wrote Dr. Kirti Patel in a recent post on social media.

She says it is the first time in her career she has actively looked at moving to Canada.

“It’s a terrifying time for women and women’s doctors in the U.S.,” she told CTV News, pointing to the case of a New York physician criminally charged with prescribing an abortion drug, mifepristone, to a young woman in Louisianna. Texas, meanwhile, has introduced a 99-year prison sentence for doctors who perform “illegal abortions.”

Patel says she lives in a Democratic state in northeastern U.S., although she declined to specify which one. She says she’s been in contact with a least one women’s health clinic in Quebec and was connected with a physician recruiter in Ontario.

Her search is being driven in part by fear, worried the new administration could quickly dismantle access to contraceptive medications and abortions even in now liberal states.

“I don’t think we are far from women losing the kinds of rights we fought long and hard for in the past,” she said.

Looking closer at Canada’s health system, Patel says she is impressed with the country’s abortion rights, strict gun laws and universal health care. “We (in the U.S.) have lower life expectancy, higher maternal and infant (illness and death) ... and we know that Canadians have better health and a longer life expectancy.”

All the physicians interviewed for this article are American born and trained.

‘Concerns about the future’

Dr. Joyce Johnson, a pathologist in Nashville, says she is also looking at the job boards listing positions in Canada for the first time in her career.

“I have a lot of concerns about the future,” she told CTV News.

“We’ve got 51 per cent of the population, which is women, classified as D.E.I. (diversity, equity and inclusion.) We’re suddenly a special minority. That’s crazy, horrible.”

The 66-year-old says she is hesitant to leave her adult children and grandchildren, but worries about the growing tensions between executive decisions on science and health funding, and court rulings trying to halt the cuts to services and research.

“I think things are going to move very quickly here in the next weeks and months. And I have a couple of former residents who are in practice in Canada who absolutely love it,” said Johnson.

While too early to confirm it as a trend, some believe the inauguration of President Donald Trump and the firehose of changes directed at patient care may push more U.S. doctors to Canada where an estimated 6.5 million people don’t have a family doctor, and where specialists are in heavy demand.

“I would be open if I found the right job and place to live, to moving by the end of the year,” said Dr. Gretchen Winter. She is a critical care physician from Alabama who is looking at Ontario or B.C., or perhaps the east coast for her move.

“Some of it is wanting to escape the political and anti-science, anti-vax movements in the U.S., and part of it is being protective of our physical and reproductive health,” she said.

Winter also says she is tired of battling misinformation among aggressive patients who question the scientific validity of treatments.

“It leads to me feeling like people don’t trust me and my opinion and my expertise, and it makes it hard for me to want to give more of myself to patients that I feel don’t believe that I have their best interest in my heart.”

Uptick in inquiries

Some provinces, who responded to CTV News’ requests, say they are noticing a change. Officials with BC Health Match, the agency charged with recruiting for British Columbia, wrote in an email that they “noticed an increase in interest from physicians in the U.S.,” though they can’t provide specific numbers yet.

Nova Scotia Health says it’s received 35 inquiries from U.S. doctors since late November, just after the U.S. election and the start of a targeted digital recruitment campaign, with 13 doctors actively engaged in discussions involving positions in the province, according to Brendan Elliott, a public affairs officer for Nova Scotia Health. He also confirms that more than half of those inquiries are women.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario issued a reminder on Feb. 14 that American board-certified doctors who want to move to the province are exempt from any other certification, like from the College of Family Physicians of Canada or the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Nova Scotia has a similar expedited program that eliminates time-consuming additional exams or training for certified U.S. doctors.

Andrea Lowen, a recruiter for the Middlesex London Health team, says that at a recent medical show in Cleveland, some 200 doctors listened to her pitch to practice in Ontario, where the expedited process was a big draw.

“They were very excited. I think it got them thinking ... So, I think it wasn’t on their radar before,” said Lowen.

She was also surprised to note that the vast majority of those asking about Canadian jobs, were women.

“I came back and turned around and said to our economic development corporation, ‘We need to do a huge ad campaign in the U.S. .... And I think it could be significant,’” she said.

Answering the call

One of the health-care workers who answered Nova Scotia’s recruitment call was Dr. Libby Fleming. She moved from solo practice in Pittsburgh to work at an addiction recovery support centre in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

“My very first impression when I left the airport, was like, ‘Oh my god, it’s really beautiful here,’” she told CTV News.

Fleming is an osteopathic doctor with a board-certified licence in family medicine and a specialty in addiction medicine and met all the province’s licencing requirements.

She describes disillusionment with addiction treatment in the U.S. describing it as very “profit-driven “and “very demoralizing” because she felt the care was not focused on patient recovery.

On her arrival in Sydney last July, Fleming says she says she immediately felt welcomed and has never regretted the move, with her four children in tow.

“My kids were like, ‘Why are you smiling so much?’ Every day I’m happy to go to work and I come home happy,” said Fleming. “I’ve seen (my kids) much less stressed since we moved here,” she noted.

While health workers in Canada make less overall than in the U.S., she accepted salaried work at the clinic in return for a higher quality of life. Text alerts that there was an active shooter around their schools in Pittsburgh are now a thing of the past.

“My daughter actually said to me, ‘There’s no camera on our school bus. If someone comes to shoot us, they’re not going to know who did it.’” Fleming says she told her school shootings are rare to non-existent in Canada because of gun laws.

Since Trump’s inauguration, Fleming says she’s suddenly heard from more U.S. health-care colleagues inquiring about moving north, too. One, a family medicine practitioner, is travelling to Nova Scotia in the coming weeks to scope out a potential jump, says Fleming.

“A lot of people are scared,” she said, adding, “I think we actually are about to see an outflow of healthcare workers from the U.S.”

Canada’s own ‘political unrest’

A spokesperson for the American Medical Women’s Association wrote that they could not confirm a trend of physicians moving north.

“We are not aware of any members who have made this decision so could not speak to this as a reality.”

It could be that curious U.S. doctors are waiting for Canada to sort out its own immediate future, said Jill Croteau, with the Canadian Society of Physician Recruitment.

“We have some political unrest, I think, in our own country right now. So potentially, after the elections, we may see more physicians coming across the border,” said Croteau.

Some of the U.S. doctors CTV spoke to are waiting to see how the political landscape in Washington unfolds before making final decisions.

Both Patel and Johnson say they want to see if judicial measures to stop funding cuts to health care and science, hold. But they are keeping their options open.

“There’s a part of me that says I should stay and just be a burr under the saddle,” said Johnson. On the other hand, she said Canada is making immigration for doctors easier than ever, an attractive option for the 66-year-old who hopes to continue working for a few more years.

“I had one person say to me, ‘Well, your housing is going to be more expensive, but I can promise you your neighbour won’t pull out a gun and shoot you.’ Like a fair trade, ” said Johnson.

For Gretchen Winter, it’s a matter of finding a critical care position in a province that will be affordable to live in because she needs a home that will accommodate her six dogs. But Canada’s health-care system is intriguing, she says.

“I am very drawn to somewhere where the first priority is taking care of people, and then the finances are behind that.”

She knows physicians in Canada generally have lower pay scales than in the U.S. but a pay cut would be offset by not having to pay for health insurance as she does south of the border.

“I probably pay at least US$20,000 a year for health insurance and stuff here, you know, between health insurance and health bills, possibly more,” said Winter.

Gynecologist Kirti Patel says she will continue to research options in Canada as long as she ”can be here (in the U.S.) safely.”

Her biggest concern is her children, now young adults.

“I want to be sure my kids can follow me if they wanted. I have to research to figure out how easily they can get a visa or citizenship before I make a move like that.”