The News
A CMAJ-published study based on a 2025 survey of 410 emergency physicians across every province and the Northwest Territories found that 1 in 10 Canadian ER doctors have left emergency medicine altogether, citing burnout. Among those who stayed, 48 percent said they had reduced their clinical hours and 20 percent had taken time off. Respondents described a system that pushes emergency departments to absorb the gaps left by the rest of the healthcare system, with fewer resources and less support to do it.
Source: CMAJ, reported by CBC News, “1 in 10 emergency doctors are leaving Canadian ERs, a new survey shows,” July 2026. cbc.ca
MAP’s Take
This one is not really an emergency medicine story. It is an administrative burden story that happens to be most visible in the ER right now.
Every physician we work with, regardless of specialty, describes some version of the same thing: the clinical work is what they trained for, and the paperwork is what is wearing them down. Manual claims review, resubmission windows, retroactive fee code corrections, referral forms that still get faxed in 2026, all of it adds up to hours that never make it into a patient’s chart but absolutely make it into a physician’s week.
Emergency medicine feels this first because it has the least slack to absorb it. But the same administrative load sits on every practice, and it compounds the same way over time: fewer hours worked, more time off taken, and eventually, people leaving. This is exactly why MAP exists. The billing, compliance, and operational work that eats into a physician’s week is work that can be handled by someone else, correctly and on time, so the clinical hours stay clinical.
The Takeaway
If administrative load is quietly pushing your practice toward the same reduced-hours pattern this study describes, that is worth addressing before it becomes a staffing decision. Offloading the billing and compliance work that does not require a physician is one of the more direct ways to protect the hours that do.