Part 2 of 6
ABFM Factbook 2024
Family Medicine —
What the data
actually shows.
102,349 ABFM-certified family physicians as of 2022. Who they are, where they practice, what they earn, and why scope narrows — structured around the data, not the pitch.
Source: ABFM Family Medicine Factbook 2024 · ABFM Graduate Survey Reports
The workforce at a glance
Key numbers from the 2024 ABFM Factbook
102KABFM-certified family physicians
ABFM 2024
30.4per 100,000 U.S. persons
ABFM 2024
78.7%providing outpatient continuity care
ABFM 2024
Top 6%FM average salary vs. all U.S. household incomes
ABFM 2024
Who practices family medicine
Demographics and practice settings
Gender
- 54.4% male overall
- Majority of current residents are female
- Women's share growing each year
- Distributed evenly across 30s–60+
Race & training
- 72.7% White
- 16.6% Asian
- 5.7% Black / African American
- 6.8% Hispanic / Latinx
- 86.7% from MD programs
- ~77% trained in US or Canada
Practice settings
- 38.5% hospital-owned (early career)
- 30.7% independently-owned (mid/late)
- 14% early career in independent practice
- 15% rural — highest of any specialty
Admin burden
- >50% report EHR at home as moderately high or excessive
- A structural problem — not a personal failure
The ownership trajectory matters: Only 14% of early-career FPs are in independent practice — but 30.7% of mid/late career physicians are. DPC changes this timeline structurally by lowering startup overhead.
Compensation
What early career family physicians earn
$198KFemale FP mean income
~16%Hourly gender pay gap — documented, controlled for hours
53.6hrsMean weekly hours worked
Scope of practice
What residents intend vs. what happens in practice
FM training prepares physicians for a broad scope. In practice, that scope narrows — not because of disinterest, but because of the structural pressures of volume-based medicine.
Procedure / service
Resident intent
Early career
Joint aspiration / injection
81%
74%
Adult inpatient medicine
46%
40%
Buprenorphine treatment
25%
13%
Why scope narrows: Volume pressure, not lack of training. In a 2,000-patient panel at 25 patients per day, there isn't time for the procedures residency trained you for. DPC's smaller panels and longer visits structurally protect broader scope.
"Family medicine is the only specialty providing care that is simultaneously first-contact, continuous, coordinated, and comprehensive — treating all ages, all organ systems."
— ABFM Family Medicine Factbook, 2024