CANADIAN ANESTHESIA PHYSICIAN RESOURCE PLANNING - IS IT POSSIBLE

This study was undertaken with the objective of assessing current sour ces of information for anaesthesia Physician Resource Planning (PRP). Four major data bases, the annual reports of Health and Welfare Canada (H&W) the education statistics from the Canadian Post-M.D. Education Registry (GAPER), the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Cana da (RCPSC) and the Physician Resource Data System of the Canadian Medi cal Association (PRDS) were examined for the period 1982 to 1991. The ratio of the number of surgical (S) to anaesthesia (A) clinicians decr eased over this period despite an increase in the S:A ratios for train ees and certificants. The number of female anaesthetists has progressi vely increased. A steady decline in the number of rural anaesthetists has occurred. Age distribution of active certified anaesthetists revea led marked inter-regional differences. Little change was noted in the total mean hours worked per week. Each database provided valuable, but limited, data. The PRDS data is useful in assessing trends (age, sex and practice activity). Information provided by H&W tends to underesti mate anaesthesia resource information by at least 10%. While informati on obtained from RCPSC and GAPER is accurate, the current mode of pres entation of data limits their usefulness. Integrating data from all th e databases appears to provide a meaningful assessment for PRP rather than assessing each database in isolation. Interpretation of the infor mation and its value must take into account the limitations of the dat a being provided. Assessing present and planning future needs based on the current information structure will prove extremely difficult.