Factors influencing decisions about the state in which doctors plan to practise: additional results from the 2002 Australian Medical Workforce Advisory Committee national survey

Abstract

As a result of growing doctor shortages, postgraduate doctor recruitment and retention within Australian states and territories has become an issue of concern. Australia?s policy of national self-sufficiency in health workforce supply implies that state medical schools will, at a minimum, enrol a sufficient number of locally born students to meet future medical workforce requirements. This article focuses on factors influencing the state or territory in which doctors plan to practise medicine, identified through a national survey. Independent variables of interest were birth place, medical school and vocational training location because of their importance to medical workforce policy. The study found that the career location plans of Australianborn and overseas-born doctors in vocational training were similar and that 5% of doctors planned to work overseas. Of Australian-born doctors who planned to work in Australia, 88% graduated from a medical school in the state in which they were born, while 78% and 65%, respectively, were undertaking vocational training in, and proposed to work in, the state in which they were born. The study concludes that trainee-doctor decisions about the state or territory in which they will practise medicine when they are fully qualified are more complex than location of birth.