ACS: Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. Counties Have No Surgeon

MONDAY, Oct. 5, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. counties lack a surgeon, with great variance in county-level availability by surgeon specialty and geographic area, according to a study published online Sept. 28 in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons to coincide with the annual meeting of the American College of Surgeons, held from Sept. 26 to 29 in Washington, D.C.

Erin Fraher, Ph.D., from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues used the April 2025 National Plan and Provider Enumeration System to characterize surgeon supply, geographic distribution, and concentration across 12 surgical specialties and multiple geographic units.

The researchers identified 201,394 surgeons and found that 30 percent of 3,144 counties (representing 9.6 million residents) had no identified surgeon, while 38 percent had no general surgeon (representing 15.1 million residents). A total of 475 (4.3 percent of all hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers), including 434 Critical Access Hospitals, were in counties without an identified surgeon. While nationally there were 59.2 surgeons per 100,000 population, hospital referral region supply ranged from 20.8 to 250.4 per 100,000. Gini coefficients ranged across surgical specialty, from 0.150 for obstetrics and gynecology to 0.584 for transplant surgery.

“For a patient, the question is not how many surgeons the country has, it is whether there is one available where they live,” coauthor Thomas C. Tsai, M.D., from the American College of Surgeons, said in a statement. “National averages can obscure substantial differences from one community to another. This study highlights a need to assess whether our national health workforce and reimbursement policies are supporting the ability of patients to access the right care at the right time and the right place.”

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