Abstract
BackgroundAs the general practitioner and specialist medical workforce ages there is likely to be a large number of retirees in the near future. However, few Australian studies have specifically examined medical practitioner retirement and projected retirement patterns, and the subsequent impact this may have on training future health care professionals.MethodsExtracts from the Australian Medicare database and Medical Labour Force Surveys are used to examine trends in attrition of general medical practitioners and specialists over the age of 45 years from the workforce and to predict their rate of retirement to 2025.ResultsThe general medical practitioner workforce has aged significantly (p < 0.05). Between the years 2000 and 2025, it was projected that 43% of the year 2000 general practitioner workforce and 56% of the specialist workforce would have retired.ConclusionThe ageing of the baby boomer and older cohorts of the general practitioner and specialist workforce will lead to a significant number of retirements over the next 20 years. Increasing the numbers of students and new medical schools has been heralded as a means of alleviating service shortages from about 2015 onwards; however, the retirement of a large proportion of experienced health care professionals may lead to shortages of educators for these students.
Highlights
As the general practitioner and specialist medical workforce ages there is likely to be a large number of retirees in the near future
Two major government reports have examined the impact of ageing in Australia - the Intergenerational Reports (IGR) released by the Treasury in 2002 and 2007 [1,2] and the report on the Economic Implications of an Ageing Australia by the Productivity Commission [3]
The methods used in this paper are similar to those used recently in Australia to examine past general practitioner and nursing retirement [8] but using different data sources and projecting the patterns of retirement into the future
Summary
As the general practitioner and specialist medical workforce ages there is likely to be a large number of retirees in the near future. Few Australian studies have examined medical practitioner retirement and projected retirement patterns, and the subsequent impact this may have on training future health care professionals. A recent paper projecting Australian medical workforce supply from 2001-2012 [9] included the impact of ageing and concluded that there will not be enough doctors in 2012. This has contributed to calls for more medical training places [10] to both meet the increasing demand for health care caused by the ageing Australian population, and to overcome the loss of medical practitioners as the medical workforce ages. The government has responded by significantly expanding the number of medical places available
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