Recruitment Data: Demand for Family Physicians Surges

Family medicine residents are beginning to feel the impact of the nation's primary care physician shortage as demand for their specialty continues to rise and more recruiters contact them with employment opportunities.

That impact becomes apparent in two reports released by Merritt Hawkins, a national physician recruiting company. The first, "2006 Review of Physician Recruitment Incentives," (PDF file: 12 pages / 192 KB. More about PDFs.) reports that recruitment requests for family physicians surged by 55 percent, outpacing all specialty and subspecialty categories. Likewise, the number of primary care residents contacted by more than 26 recruiters has skyrocketed, according to the second report, "2006 Survey of Final Year Medical Residents."
(PDF file: 12 pages / 160 KB. More about PDFs.)

"The Merritt Hawkins findings are entirely consistent with a growing awareness on the part of organized medicine, the government, insurers and employers that we now face a worsening shortage of primary care providers, especially for the aging adult population," said Perry Pugno, M.D., AAFP director of medical education. "With the current, multi-year trend of declines in general internal medicine, it's clear the nation will depend like never before on family physicians to form the foundation of our health care system. Medical students will come to appreciate the nation's dependence on family physicians, and interest in family medicine careers will undoubtedly grow."

According to the Merritt Hawkins 2006 physician incentive survey, family physician searches were the second most frequent recruitment request between April 1, 2005, and March 31, 2006. Family medicine moved ahead of cardiology, radiology and orthopedic surgery in the number of recruitment contracts. Only internal medicine requests outpaced family medicine.

Merritt Hawkins provides annual analyses of its physician search assignments and national survey of medical residents. Data from its physician incentive survey "indicates that two areas of primary care -- internal medicine and family practice -- are back at the forefront of physician recruiting," the report says.

"It remains very much a buyer's market for physicians coming out of training," says the survey of residents report. "… Particularly notable is the relatively high percentage of 2006 primary care residents who received 26 job solicitations or more. In 2001, … only 22 percent indicated they had received 26 or more job solicitations during the course of their training. In 2006, by contrast, 79 percent of primary care physicians indicated they had received 26 or more job solicitations during the course of their training.

"While recruitment activity directed at final year residents in specialty training diminished somewhat in 2006 relative to 2003, the amount of recruitment activity aimed at primary care physicians appears to have considerably increased," says the report.

The data augment earlier reports that demand for family physicians is on the rise. In July, the Massachusetts Medical Society issued its 2006 Physician Workforce Study, which indicates that the state is struggling with a "severe shortage" of family physicians. Community hospitals reported that family physicians constituted their "most critical shortage," according to the study's executive summary.

In February, family physician job listings in American Family Physician and AAFP Placement Services were reported to be up for two consecutive years. In 2005, listings grew 20 percent over those in 2004, which had seen a 12 percent increase over 2003 listings.