A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on July 27, 2026, reveals that 10 percent of Canadian emergency room physicians have left their specialty, driven by severe burnout and a dysfunctional healthcare system.
The nationwide research surveyed 410 emergency medicine doctors across Canadian provinces and the Northwest Territories between November 2022 and January 2025.
Nearly half of the respondents reduced their clinical hours, while 20 percent took time off to recover from workplace demands.
Female physicians and younger practitioners reported the highest burnout rates, with 65 percent of all participants scoring high for emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, or both.
Systemic Issues Driving Exodus
Researchers highlighted that systemic overcrowding, extensive wait times, and lack of primary care support significantly contributed to physician attrition.
Kerstin de Wit, an emergency physician at Kingston Health Sciences Centre and professor at Queen's University, detailed the overwhelming pressure facing medical personnel.
“The prevailing theme was that the health-care system is broken,” de Wit said.
The study found that 41 respondents had completely exited emergency medicine, with 25 moving to other medical fields, 10 retiring, and six quitting clinical practice entirely.
“We found repeated references to the emergency department making up for system inadequacies, with fewer resources and little support, and the expectation that the situation will worsen,” de Wit added.
Long waiting periods have generated severe consequences for patient care across Canada, with 10 percent of admitted ER patients spending over 48 hours waiting for a bed in recent years.
“For many, the future of emergency medicine was hopeless, with no possibility of recovery,” de Wit said.
De Wit noted that detachment often serves as a psychological coping mechanism for doctors facing insurmountable workplace challenges.
“The unfortunate side effect is that the patient doesn’t feel they’re being heard as well, or they leave the emergency department feeling there was no sympathy for their condition,” she said.
Healthcare professionals expressed frustration with systemic failures that force them to administer care in corridors and waiting rooms.
“There is an overriding sentiment that everybody is looking for a way to leave the emergency department,” de Wit said.
Kaitlin Stockton, an emergency physician and spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, highlighted that early-career doctors are disproportionately departing the field.
“We're seeing this alarming exodus of health-care workers across the country,” Stockton said.
Stockton emphasized that structural issues are driving young professionals away from hospital medicine entirely.
“And these are not people that are nearing retirement.
These are people that are three, five, 10 years out from school that are leaving emergency medicine, leaving hospital-based medicine or actually leaving medicine altogether — because they can no longer sustain this job and still maintain their own well-being,” she said.
James Maskalyk, a Toronto-based emergency physician, pointed out that systemic flaws directly damage the relationship between doctors and those seeking urgent medical care.
“If you look at the reasons why people leave the profession, organizational issues are the biggest ones,” Maskalyk said.
Maskalyk observed that medical staff often experience deep distress when institutional barriers prevent adequate patient care.
“At the level of the doctor-patient relationship, we feel like we’re letting people down,” he said.
Catherine Varner, an emergency physician and deputy editor at the CMAJ, warned against misplacing blame on individual frontline workers during medical crises.
“Canada’s 50-year investment in developing a highly effective fleet of physicians with specialized or additional training in emergency medicine, who provide 24-hour coverage to most emergency departments across the country, could be squandered,” Varner said.
Varner referenced an aviation accident investigation to illustrate how systemic flaws should be evaluated rather than faulting individual workers publicly.
“Consider the stark contrast with the communications on, and inquiry into, the tragic collision of an Air Canada flight with a fire truck on the runway at LaGuardia Airport,” she said.
Varner noted how public inquiries handled non-medical disasters differently regarding staff anonymity.
“Yet, air traffic controllers were not publicly named, and the media were swift to acknowledge the many system-level events that precipitated this tragic occurrence,” she said.
Varner urged healthcare leaders to take direct responsibility for systemic dysfunction rather than deflecting fault onto individual workers.
“Health care system leaders must not use individuals as convenient shields to avoid taking accountability for a complex system problem,” she said.
To address the systemic decline, the study authors called for the establishment of Emergency Care Clinical Networks, increased specialized geriatric emergency care, and expanded health staffing outside emergency departments.
