Medical Specialists

Emerging specialties such as emergency medicine and family medicine grew rapidly and became more equitably distributed. Frail participants did not have statistically significant higher odds of medical specialist visits after adjustment. Frailty was not associated with higher odds of medical specialist use in the primary healthcare sector. Frail people may rely more on GPs while having lower or unchanged specialist access. Established specialties had higher baseline density and grew steadily. Medical specialists in the review were hospital-based physicians who had completed postgraduate specialty training. Specialist numbers increased 2.5 times from 2015 to 2024. Specialist accessibility may be limited by geographic distance, mobility limitations, and inadequate rural public transportation. Scarce specialties remained low in availability and often highly unequal in distribution. A large proportion of clinical questions may remain unanswered because of information overload and difficulty managing or selecting information. Medical specialists most often answer clinical questions through autonomous searches of standalone sources and colleague consultation. Medical specialists need tim…