Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, all, for being here. It's greatly appreciated. I know we have the Department of Health and PHAC and researchers here as well, who are great to have.
We're looking at women's health and ultimately how we address this issue. There's a lot of concern, and I'm going to go right to what I hear from patients. Ultimately, one of the concerns you hear from patients is that female patients, first, can't find female practitioners. When I went to school 39 years ago, there were more men than women in the practice. Now, when you look at it today, you're looking at over 50%.
In my latest research I saw that, overall in Canada in 2022, 49.7% of physicians were female. When we look at gynecologists, we see that just under 60% are female gynecologists, which is great to see, and because that knowledge is there there's that ability to interrelate.
However, the concern a lot of female patients have is that they can't get access to a practitioner who will talk to them or a female practitioner they can relate to. This question is for all of you, and maybe I'll start with Dr. Clifford. What do we need to be able to do here in Canada to, first, have more female practitioners and, second, make certain we have them out there such that patients have a chance to see them?