Oona Zenda, Kff Health News
Earlier this year, when President Donald Trump was starting to reshape the US government, Michael, an emergency doctor who was born, raised and trained in the United States, packed his family and left the country.
Michael is now working in a small town hospital in Canada. Kff Health News and NPRs have granted him anonymity because of the fears that he could face a reprisals from the Trump administration if he returned to the United States, he said that he felt a certain guilt that he did not stay to resist the Trump's agenda but is assured in his decision to leave. Too much America has simply become too comfortable with violence and cruelty, he said.
“Part of the creation of a doctor is the kindness of people who are in their weakest place,” said Michael. “And I have the impression that our country devotes itself to really walking on weak and vulnerable people.”
Michael is part of a new wave of doctors who leave the United States to escape the Trump administration. During the months following Trump's re -election and returned to the White House, American doctors have shown to be skyrocketed to be dismissed in Canada, where dozens more than normal have already been authorized to practice, according to Canadian license officials and recruitment companies.
The Canada Medical Council declared in an e-mail declaration that the number of American doctors creating accounts on Physiciansapply.cawhich is “generally the first step” to be under license in Canada, has increased by more than 750% in the last seven months compared to the same period of last year – from 71 candidates to 615. separately, medical license organizations in the most populous provinces of Canada reported an increase in Americans who postulate or receive Canadian licenses, with at least some doctors revealing that Because of Trump.
“The doctors we are talking about are embarrassed to say that they are Americans,” said John Philpott, CEO of Canam doctor recruitmentwho recruits doctors in Canada. “They say it right away:” I have to leave this country. That's not what he was. “”
Canada, which has universal health care, has long been an option for doctors trained in the United States looking for an alternative to the American health system. Although it was still difficult for American doctors to practice in Canada due to differences in medical education standards, the Canadian provinces have relaxed certain licenses regulations in recent years, and some have accelerated licenses for doctors trained in the United States.
The Trump administration did not provide any comments for this article. When he was asked to respond to doctors leaving the United States for Canada, the White House spokesman Kush Desai, asked if Kff Health News knew the precise number of doctors and their “citizenship status”, then provided any other comments. Kff Health News had neither provided this information.
Philpott, who founded the recruitment of doctors from Canam in the 1990s, said that the cross -border movement of American and Canadian doctors has for decades and has flowed in reaction to political and economic fluctuations, but that attraction to Canada has never been as strong as today.
Philpott said that Canam saw a 65% increase in American doctors looking for Canadian jobs between January and April, and that the company was contacted by 15 American doctors per day.
Rohini Patel, a recruiter and doctor from Canam, said that some are considering salary reductions to move quickly.
“They are ready to move to Canada tomorrow,” she said. “They are not concerned about their income.”
Ontario's college of doctors and surgeons, which manages licenses in the most populated province in Canada, said in a statement that he had recorded 116 doctors formed in the United States in the first quarter of 2025 – an increase of at least 50% in the previous two quarters. Ontario also received license applications from around 260 doctors formed in the United States in the first quarter of this year, the organization said.
British Columbia, another populated province, has seen a wave of license requests from doctors trained in the United States after the election day, according to a messaging statement from the college of doctors and surgeons in British Columbia. The press release also said that the organization had authorized 28 of these doctors during the fiscal year which ended in February – triple the total of the previous year.
The College of Doctors of Quebec said that requests from doctors made by the United States has increased, as well as the number of Canadian return from America to practice in the province, but it has not provided details. In a statement, the organization said that some candidates were trying to be authorized to practice in Canada “specifically due to the real presidential administration”.
Michael, the doctor who has moved to Canada this year, said that he has been a long time since he has been in a degeneration of right-wing political rhetoric and uncontrolled armed violence in the United States for a long time, the one he has witnessed first for a decade of work in American emergencies.
Michael said he had started to consider this decision when Trump presented himself to a re -election in 2020. His breaking point came on January 6, 2021, when a violent crowd of Trump supporters besieged the American Capitol in order to stop the certification of the election of Joe Biden as president.
“Civil speech collapses,” he said. “I had a conversation with my family about how Biden was going to be a president of a term and we are still heading to be more and more radicalized to the right and an acceptance of vigilance.”
It then took about a year for Michael to become a license in Canada, then longer to finalize his work and move, he said. Although the license process was “not difficult,” he said, he forced him to obtain certified documents from his medical school and his residence program.
“The process was not more difficult than getting your first license in the United States, which is also very bureaucratic,” said Michael. “The difference is that I think most people who practiced in the United States have so much administrative fatigue that they no longer want to go through this process.”
Michael said he is now receiving emails or almost daily SMS from American doctors who are looking for advice on moving to Canada.
This desire to leave was also striking to Hippocratic adventuresA small business that helps American doctors practice medicine in other countries.
The company was co -founded by Ashwini Bapat, a doctor who moved to Yale who moved to Portugal in 2020 in part because it was “terrified that Trump wins again”. For years, the hippocratic adventures were addressed to doctors with Wanderlust, by guiding them through the bureaucracy of obtaining a license in foreign countries or the conduct of telemedicine from afar, said Bapat.
But after Trump was re -elected, customers were no longer looking for great trips around the world, said Bapat. Now they were looking for the nearest emergency exit, she said.
“Previously, it was an adventure,” said Bapat. “But the biggest peak that we saw, for sure, is when Trump won the re -election in November. And then the day of the inauguration. And essentially every day since then.”
At least one Canadian province is actively marketing to American doctors.
Manitoba doctorsWho represents the doctors of the rural province who fights with one of the worst shortages of doctor in Canada, launched a recruitment campaign after the elections to capitalize on Trump and the rise of far-right policy in the United States
The campaign focuses on Florida and Dakota in the North and South and publishes “Zero political interference In the relationship of patients with doctor “as a sale argument.
Alison Carleton, a family medical doctor who moved from Iowa to Manitoba in 2017, said she left to escape the Daily Grind of America for profit for profit and because she was dismayed that Trump was elected the first time.
Carleton said she is now running a small town clinic with low stress, less paperwork and no fear of burying her patients in medical debt.
She abandoned her American citizenship last year.
“The people I know said,” You left just in time “,” said Carleton. “I say to people:” I know. When are you going to move? “”
Kff Health News is a national editorial room that produces in -depth journalism on health problems and is one of the main operating programs in Kff – The independent source of research on health policies, survey and journalism.
