Earlier this year, Michael, an emergency room doctor, was born, raised and trained in the United States, packed up and left the country as President Donald Trump began reshaping the U.S. government.

Michael now works in a small town hospital in Canada. KFF Health News and NPR grant him anonymity for fear that he might be retaliated by the Trump administration if he returns to the United States, he said he felt indifferent and that he did not stay to resist the Trump agenda, but was assured in his decision to leave. He said too many places in the United States are just becoming too comfortable with violence and cruelty.

“Being a part of a doctor is kind to the people at their weakest points,” Michael said. “And I feel our country is trying to really step into the weak and vulnerable.”

Michael is one of the new doctors who left the United States and fled the Trump administration. In the months since Trump was re-election and returned to the White House, U.S. doctors have shown interest in obtaining licenses in Canada, with more than dozens of interest in obtaining licenses in Canada, according to Canadian licensing officials and recruiting businesses, according to Canadian licensing officials and recruiting businesses.

The number of doctors in the United States creates an account, the Canadian Medical Council said in an email statement Doctor's ApplicationThe “usually the first step” of obtaining licenses in the past seven months has increased by more than 750% in the past seven months – from 71 applicants to 615. Individually, the medical licensing organization in Canada's most populous provinces reported that the most populous provinces in the United States rose to the growth of Americans, at least Canadian applicants who applied for Canadians, at least some of them applied for some doctors because they revealed some specific trakes because they announced specific trake tracks.

“The doctors we are talking to say they are Americans in embarrassment,” John Philpott said CANAM Physician Recruitmentrecruit doctors to Canada. "They said it was far from the door: 'I have to leave this country. It's not what it used to be.'"

With universally funded health care in Canada, Canada has long been an option for American trained doctors seeking alternatives to the U.S. health care system. Although it used to be difficult for American doctors to practice in Canada due to differences in medical education standards, Canadian provinces have relaxed some licensing regulations in recent years, and some are speeding up the licensing of doctors trained in the United States.

The Trump administration has not provided any comments on this article. When asked to respond to a doctor leaving the U.S. for Canada, White House spokesman Kush Desai asked KFF Health News if he knew the exact number of doctors and their "citizenship" and then did not provide further comments. KFF Health News does not or provides this information.

Philpott, who founded CANAM physicians in the 1990s, said that for decades, the cross-border movement of American and Canadian doctors' response to political and economic volatility has faded and flowed, but the revolution towards Canada has never been as powerful as it is now.

Philport said CANAM's U.S. doctors searching for Canadian jobs increased by 65% ​​between January and April, and the company has contacted 15 U.S. doctors a day.

Canon recruiter and doctor Rohini Patel said some people think that salary cuts to move quickly.

"They are going to move to Canada tomorrow," she said. "They are not worried about how much they earn."

Ontario Medical and Surgeons, which handles licenses in Canada's most populous province, said in a statement that it registered 116 U.S.-trained doctors in the first quarter of 2025, an increase of at least 50% from the previous two quarters. Ontario also received license applications from about 260 U.S.-trained doctors in the first quarter of this year, the organization said.

British Columbia, another province with a large population, saw a license application for training doctors in the United States after Election Day, according to an email statement from the British Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. The statement also said the organization authorized 28 such doctors in the fiscal year ending in February, three times the total of the previous year.

The Medical College in Quebec said applications for doctors trained in the United States increased, with Canadian doctors returning to the province from the United States to practice, but did not provide specific details. In a statement, the organization said some applicants tried to practice in Canada “especially because of the actual presidential administration.”

Michael, a doctor who moved to Canada this year, said he has long been alert to the right-wing political rhetoric and unchecked gun violence he described in the United States, which has worked in the U.S. emergency room for a decade.

Michael said he began to think about the move when Trump ran for reelection in 2020. His breakthrough point was on January 6, 2021, when Trump's violent mob besieged the U.S. Capitol to stop Joe Biden's election as president.

“Civil discourse is disintegrating,” he said. “I talk to my family about how Biden will become a president for the term, and we are still in an increasingly radical direction towards rights and acceptance of vigilance.”

He said it took Michael about a year to get a license in Canada and then to complete his work and move for a longer period of time. He said while the licensing process was “not difficult”, it did require him to obtain certified documents from medical school and residence programs.

“This process is no more difficult than getting your first license in the United States, which is also very bureaucratic,” Michael said. “The difference is that I think most people who practice in the United States have so much administrative fatigue that they don’t want to go through the process again.”

Michael said he is now receiving daily emails or text messages from U.S. doctors who are seeking advice on moving to Canada.

This desire to leave is also surprising Hippocrates Adventurea small business that helps American doctors work in medicine in other countries.

The company was co-founded by Yale-educated doctor Ashwini Bapat, who moved to Portugal in 2020, partly because she "scares Trump to win again." Over the years, Hippocrates had ventured to cater to doctors with Wanderlust's doctors, guiding them through bureaucracy that was licensed in foreign countries or telemedicine from a distance, Bapat said.

But after Trump’s re-election, customers no longer seek grand global travel. Now they are looking for the nearest emergency exit, she said.

"It used to be about adventure," Bapat said. "But the biggest spike we'll definitely see was when Trump won reelection in November.

At least one Canadian province is actively marketing to U.S. doctors.

Dr. ManitobaDoctors representing rural provinces fight Canada’s worst doctor shortage, launching a recruitment campaign after the election to capitalize on the rise of Trump and the U.S. far-right politics

The campaign focuses on Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota and promotes theZero political intervention In the relationship between doctors, as a selling point.

Alison Carleton, a family medicine doctor who moved from Iowa to Manitoba in 2017, said she left to escape the day-to-day work of the for-profit healthcare system in the United States, as she was shocked by Trump's first election.

Carlton said she now runs a small town clinic with low stress and fewer paperwork and is not afraid to bury patients in medical debt.

Last year, she gave up her U.S. citizenship.

"People I know said, 'You left in time.' "I told people, 'I know. When will you move? '"

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