Fig. 1

This figure illustrates the distribution of pediatric physicians across the provinces of Iran. For each category of physician, we calculated a presence ratio, defined as the number of physicians of a given type in each province divided by the number of hospitals in that province. This ratio represents the average density of that specialist per hospital. For example, in Alborz province, there were 5 neonatologists across 12 hospitals, corresponding to 0.42 neonatologists per hospital. In East Azarbaijan province, there were 27 pediatricians across 30 hospitals, corresponding to 0.90 pediatricians per hospital. Thus, the color gradient in Fig. 1 reflects these ratios, with darker blue denoting higher physician density and darker red denoting lower density. Nationally, there were a total of 219 neonatologists, 15 neonatology fellows, 613 pediatricians, and 45 pediatric residents distributed across 674 hospitals. These totals correspond to overall average presence ratios of approximately 0.32 neonatologists, 0.02 fellows, 0.91 pediatricians, and 0.07 residents per hospital, respectively. Figure 1, therefore, depicts the provincial variation around these national averages, highlighting areas of relative undersupply and oversupply of pediatric physicians.