Job market strong for medical residents, but many would leave healthcare
Despite the robust job market, 30% of residents indicated they would not choose medicine if they had their careers to do over.
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The job market is strong for medical residents, with the majority (56%) in a new survey saying they received 100 or more job solicitations during their training. AMN Healthcare's 2023 Survey of Final-Year Medical Residents showed that this is the highest number since the survey was first conducted in 1991.
Seventy-eight percent of residents received 51 or more job solicitations during their training, also the highest number since the survey was first conducted. This marks a strong rebound from where things were in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic – in 2021, only 30% of residents indicated they received 100 or more job solicitations.
And yet, despite the robust job market, 30% of residents indicated they would not choose medicine if they had their careers to do over, the highest number since the survey was first conducted.
WHAT'S THE IMPACT?
Demand for physicians is being driven by a variety of factors, including population growth, population aging, and prevailing population ill-health. As demand for physicians rises, the supply of physicians is being inhibited by an insufficient number of residency positions, physician aging and physician burnout, the latter of which was exacerbated by the pandemic.
Both male and female residents reportedly received numerous job solicitations during their training, though male residents reported receiving more solicitations than female residents. Eighty-one percent of male residents said they received 51 or more job solicitations during their training, while 61% said they received 100 or more; meanwhile, 72% of female residents said they received 51 or more job solicitations, while 51% said they received 100 or more.
Eighty percent of U.S. graduates said they received 51 or more job solicitations during their training, compared to only 67% of IMGs. This may be due in part to the fact that IMGs are overrepresented in some areas of primary care, particularly internal medicine, the survey found. Forty percent of general internal medicine residents are IMGs, according to the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile.
Of the 30% who indicated they would choose a field other than healthcare, many are troubled by the length, expense, intensity and stress of their training, and by the conditions that may greet them in their first professional practice. Feelings of angst and frustration are expressed in many of the written comments residents included in the survey.
Female physicians were more likely to express reservations about their career choice than were males. Only 64% of female physicians said they would choose medicine again as a career compared to 73% of males.
The majority of residents (81%) indicated that they sometimes, often, or always experienced feelings of burnout during their residency, which is likely a key reason why many expressed second thoughts about their choice of a career, the survey found.
Lifestyle and personal time are of the highest importance to residents considering job opportunities. Eighty-two percent of residents said "lifestyle" is very important to them as they consider a first practice, followed by "adequate personal time" (80%), "good financial package" (78%) and geographic location (76%).
Only 4% of residents would prefer to practice in a community of 25,000 or less, underscoring the challenges rural communities face when recruiting new physicians.
THE LARGER TREND
In the 2022 Nurse Salary Research Report, 29% of nurses said they were considering leaving the profession, a steep rise from the 11% who were considering such a move in the 2020 survey.
Among the respondents, 4% said they work as travel nurses, and 62% of those became travel nurses in 2020 or 2021. Higher pay far surpassed all other reasons for becoming a travel nurse, followed by dissatisfaction with management.
An American Medical Association survey released in August ranked emergency medicine physicians as the top specialty affected by burnout, with 62% of respondents reporting symptoms.
Rounding out the top six most burned-out specialties are hospital medicine (59%), family medicine (58%), pediatrics (55%), obstetrics and gynecology (54%), and internal medicine (52%).
Meanwhile, just 52% of pediatrician respondents reported feeling valued by their organization. The other top five specialties all fell below 50% on that metric. Only 40% of ob-gyns said they felt valued.
Twitter: @JELagasse
Email the writer: Jeff.Lagasse@himssmedia.com
