Physician burnout is declining and systems are finding new ways to recruit physicians without raising pay, but international physicians are in limbo amid visa renewal delays. There are just a few things to know about the physician workforce in 2026.
Here is where the workforce stands in the first half of the year:
1. Across all physician specialties in the U.S., there is a projected shortage of 141,160 full-time equivalent physicians in 2038, according to a December report from the Health Resources and Services Administration.
2. About 59% of healthcare executives said physician specialists are the most difficult clinical job to fill.
3. Pay and financial incentives used to have the greatest impact on physician recruitment, but in recent years, pay has become a smaller factor in why a physician chooses their employer. Physician executives told Becker’s some of the best tools to recruit physicians include a strong culture, opportunities to practice to the top of their license, providing a personal touch during the recruitment process and providing a clinical environment where they can practice what they’ve trained to do.
4. The Department of Homeland Security has quietly changed its travel ban policy, freeing foreign physicians from visa renewal limbo. Visa processing delays were sidelining foreign physicians at hospitals and clinics across the nation, adding to staffing shortages and recruitment headaches for hospitals. In October, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services froze automatic extensions of employment authorizations for visas. In December, the Trump administration released Proclamation 10998, which implemented a full suspension of entry to the U.S. for nationals from 19 countries, and a partial suspension of entry from 20 countries. Although the travel ban does not apply to visa holders in the U.S., the agency paused visa renewals and updates for people from those countries.
This subjected more than 10,000 physician H-1B visa holders and 17,000 with J-1s, along with thousands of nurses, lab techs and other healthcare workers to the visa pause. Some foreign physicians have waited months for an update on their application, even after their hospital paid a $2,965 fee to fast-track their applications so they would receive it in two weeks. Because most medical residencies begin or end in the summer, a wave of physician visas are expected to expire within weeks, forcing foreign physicians to miss fellowship deadlines, forgo jobs or be sidelined from their current position while waiting for renewal. Physicians on H-1Bs, a visa for highly skilled workers, can keep treating patients for 240 days after their visa expires, but that date is passing for many.
5. Among U.S. resident physicians, about 8 in 10 are in specialty programs and the remainder are in subspecialty programs. Primary care specialties made up the top specialties; internal medicine alone accounted for about one-fifth of all residents. Only 56.4% of non-U.S. international medical graduates matched to a post-graduate year 1, or PGY-1, position, representing a 1.6% decrease from 2025 and a five-year low for these applicants, according to the National Resident Matching Program.
6. An April 23 report from Trilliant Health found that despite a yearslong growth in medical school enrollments and primary care residency slots, these residencies are increasingly going unfilled. Since 2012, U.S. medical residency positions increased 65.6%. For the 2026 Match, more than 40,000 medical school graduates secured a residency spot for 2026. While primary care specialties accounted for about half of these placements (approximately 20,700), “primary care residencies were disproportionately unfilled in 2026,” Trilliant found. “Family medicine went 16.4% unfilled, followed by pediatrics and internal medicine, 5.6% and 4.6%, respectively.”
7. Only 47% of physicians said they would still choose medicine again under the new federal loan cap policy, 27% said they would not choose medicine again and 26% were unsure, according to new data from Panacea Financial shared with Becker’s. Among those paying down debt, 88% identified student loans as the primary burden.
8. Burnout among physicians is continuing to decline, but three specialties — emergency medicine, urological surgery and hematology/oncology — still have a burnout rate of more than 49%, an American Medical Association survey found. In 2025, 41.9% of physicians reported at least one symptom of burnout, down from 43.2% in 2024.
9. Radiology and orthopedics tied for the specialties that lead to the highest net worth, with 39% of providers in those specialties having a net worth over $5 million, an April 24 Medscape report found.
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