Number of Physicians

In Japan, a high level of medical service is available at a low rate under the insurance system. However, the recent shortage in physicians is becoming a serious problem. Bad working conditions such as long working hours and the increase in the risks of litigation are given as reasons for the shortage in physicians. No solution to this medical problem which has been taken up several years ago is yet in sight.

Firstly, from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's statistical database system, the 2006 data shows that there is a total of 277,927 physicians in Japan. This is an increase of 8.3% from the 256,668 physicians in 2004, indicating that the number of people wishing to become doctors has increased despite the extreme environment.

Kyoto has the greatest number of physicians per 100 thousand population, with 292 physicians. This is 2.06 times that of Saitama (142 physicians) ranked last. In the prior survey, Tokyo was ranked first with 264 physicians per 100 thousand population which was 2.05 times that of Saitama (129 physicians), ranked last in the prior survey as well. This gap between the top ranked and the lowest ranked prefectures has not narrowed this past two years.

In general, it tends to be a high-west low-east distribution, with many physicians in western Japan. One reason for this given in "Japan Mail Media" is

"There was a regional difference in the rates of implementation of transplantations. Regionally, there was a difference of 2.1 times between 31% in the Tohoku area to 65% in the Hokuriku area, with an overall high-west low-east distribution. What caused such difference? From further analysis, it was found to be not a problem of money such as prefectural income, but affected by the number of physicians and specialized facilities. Further, it was strongly related to the period of establishment of medical schools in each prefecture."

It seems that the number of medical facilities and regional history seem to be factors affecting the number of physicians. The correlative ranking shows that it is highly correlated with the number of medical schools and it can be seen that the number of medical schools and the number of physicians are closely related.

The situation in which there are extremely few physicians in areas around Tokyo and many physicians in Tokyo remains unchaged from the prior survey.