TOP 10 Countries by Medical Graduates per 100,000 Population (2025)
Medical graduates per 100,000 people: who is training tomorrow’s doctors?
The annual number of medical graduates per 100,000 population is one of the cleanest indicators of how aggressively a country is investing in its future medical workforce. Training a doctor typically takes a decade from the first year of medical school to full specialist registration, so today’s graduation numbers signal the supply of doctors for the mid-2030s. Across the OECD, the average rate now sits around 14 medical graduates per 100,000 people – but the Top 10 countries train almost twice as many new doctors each year.
Why this ranking matters for health-system planning
Medical graduate density is not a measure of how many doctors are practising today – it is a measure of how many new doctors a country adds to the system each year. Countries that sit at the top of this table are deliberately expanding their domestic training capacity, often to reduce dependence on foreign-trained doctors and to prepare for ageing populations.
At the other end of the spectrum, low-graduation countries can appear stable for years – until waves of retirement, outward migration or rising demand suddenly expose how thin the pipeline has become. That is why most OECD workforce strategies now combine tighter forecasting with explicit targets for medical school places and graduation numbers.
The table below summarises an indicative Top 10 based on the latest OECD, Eurostat and national sources, using the most recent year available before 2025 as a proxy for the current landscape.
Table 1. TOP 10 countries by medical graduates per 100,000 population (latest data ≈ 2020–2023)
Each row shows approximate numbers of new medical graduates per 100,000 population in a recent year. Values are rounded and harmonised across sources; the ranking is therefore indicative but reflects consistent patterns across the last decade.
| Rank | Country | Medical graduates per 100,000 (approx.) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bulgaria | ≈ 29.5 |
| 2 | Malta | ≈ 27.7 |
| 3 | Latvia | ≈ 27.5 |
| 4 | Ireland | ≈ 24.8 |
| 5 | Lithuania | ≈ 24–25 |
| 6 | Denmark | ≈ 22–23 |
| 7 | Belgium | ≈ 21–22 |
| 8 | Portugal | ≈ 20–21 |
| 9 | Romania | ≈ 19–20 |
| 10 | Netherlands | ≈ 18–19 |
Note: Figures draw on OECD Health Statistics, Eurostat’s “Medical doctor graduates” dataset and national workforce reports. Some countries are omitted due to missing or inconsistent data. The OECD average in recent years is around 14 medical graduates per 100,000 population, well below most of the countries listed here.
From bottlenecks to expansion: how graduation rates changed since 2010
Table 2. Change in medical graduates per 100,000, 2010–2025 (indicative bands)
Nearly all OECD and EU countries increased medical graduate output over the last 15 years, but the scale of change varies widely. The Top 10 group is dominated by “big accelerators” that more than doubled their graduate density, alongside a smaller group of countries that expanded more cautiously from already high levels.
| Band | Indicative change, 2010–2025 | Examples and implications |
|---|---|---|
| Big accelerators | +70% to +120% | Countries such as Bulgaria, Malta, Latvia and Portugal more than doubled their medical graduate rates. They responded to chronic shortages and heavy reliance on imported doctors by sharply expanding training places. The upside is a stronger domestic pipeline; the downside is pressure on internships and specialist training slots if clinical capacity does not keep pace. |
| Steady expanders | +30% to +70% | Ireland, Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands fall into this band. They were already above average in 2010 and continued to grow, but at a more measured pace. These systems focus as much on quality and retention as on sheer numbers, using graduate inflows to rebalance specialties and reduce regional gaps. |
| Gradual adjusters | 0% to +30% | A minority of high-income countries changed little. Some rely heavily on international graduates; others are still debating how many doctors they will need by 2035. For them, the main risk is drifting into shortages because policy decisions lag behind demographic and epidemiological realities. |
Percentage bands are based on OECD trend data for 2000–2023 and EU workforce studies. Exact figures differ across sources, but the direction of travel is consistent: almost all Top 10 countries have grown their medical graduate density substantially since 2010.
The chart below translates Table 1 into a visual ranking. The gap between the OECD average (roughly 14 graduates per 100,000 population) and the leading countries – many above 20 – highlights just how differently health systems approach workforce self-sufficiency.
Values are stylised and rounded. They are intended for international comparison and educational use, not for monitoring formal national targets.
Tracking the pipeline: three country stories behind the numbers
Looking only at a single year can hide the policy story. The line chart below follows three illustrative countries – Ireland, Denmark and Bulgaria – from 2000 to the early-2020s. Each has chosen a different path to expand its medical training capacity, shaped by history, migration and health-system design.
Line chart: medical graduates per 100,000, 2000–2023 (stylised)
All three countries started above the OECD average in 2000 and have moved even further ahead. Ireland steadily increased its output from around 14 to nearly 25 graduates per 100,000 population; Denmark grew more gradually from the high teens into the low twenties; Bulgaria accelerated sharply in the 2010s before stabilising at close to 30 graduates per 100,000.
Series are stylised but consistent with OECD and Eurostat trend data. They illustrate long-run policy choices rather than exact annual values.
How countries can use this indicator without misreading it
For planners, the key lesson from the Top 10 is that there is no universal “right” number of medical graduates per 100,000 population. Instead, the indicator needs to be interpreted through the lens of migration, task-sharing and health-system goals.
- Graduation density must match training capacity. Expanding intake without expanding clinical placements, supervision and specialty posts can leave graduates stuck in limbo, unable to progress into independent practice.
- Emigration can drain even very high outputs. Ireland and several Central-Eastern European countries produce large numbers of new doctors, but many leave soon after graduation for better-paid posts abroad. Domestic graduation rates then overstate the actual gain for the national workforce.
- International recruitment changes the picture. Countries with lower domestic graduation rates can still maintain adequate doctor numbers if they actively recruit migrant physicians. From a global perspective, however, relying heavily on imported doctors raises ethical questions when source countries face shortages.
- Quality and specialty mix matter as much as quantity. A surge in graduates does not automatically translate into more GPs, rural doctors or under-served specialties. Targeted incentives and training pathways are needed to align the flow of new doctors with population health needs.
Used in combination with indicators for practising doctors per 1,000 population, medical school entry quotas and migration flows, medical graduates per 100,000 population becomes a powerful tool to stress-test how prepared health systems really are for 2030 and beyond.
Primary data sources and further reading
- OECD – Health at a Glance 2023 and Health at a Glance 2025, chapter “Medical graduates”. Includes country-level time series on medical graduates per 100,000 population and discussion of trends since 2000. Open OECD medical graduates dataset
- OECD Health Statistics and Health Workforce hub – background documentation on methods, coverage and comparability of health workforce indicators. OECD health workforce overview
- Eurostat – “Medical doctor graduates per 100 000 inhabitants” (hlth_rs_grd2) news release and database, including the latest figures for EU member states. Eurostat medical doctor graduates
- World Health Organization – Global Health Workforce Statistics (NHWA), providing complementary series for countries outside the OECD and methodological notes. WHO Global Health Workforce database
- National workforce reports (for example, Ireland’s Medical Workforce Intelligence Report, country health-profile series for Lithuania and others) offering deeper analysis of migration, specialty mix and regional distribution. Country-level health system reviews
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