Factors influencing the choice of specialty of Australian medical graduates.

Objective: To identify the relative importance of extrinsic determinants of doctors' choice of specialty.

Design: A self-administered postal questionnaire.

Setting: Australian vocational training programs.

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

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, enroll 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.

Medical workforce planning in Australia: process, methodology and technical issues.

This article describes the process, methods and technical issues associated with national level planning of the medical workforce in Australia. In Australia, workforce planning is also undertaken for the nursing and allied health workforces using largely similar processes and methods outlined below, with obvious modifications for differences in data sources, structures and practice. In Australia, the focus is also switching to a more integrated planning approach along care group lines, for example emergency care, diabetes care.

Planning Australia's hospital workforce.

Growing government support has been evident during the past decade for macro-level workforce planning to ensure that future populations have access to appropriate health care services. Population ageing is impacting on workforce requirements and on workforce supply within Australia and internationally. Changes in financing and the organisation of health services are impacting on the availability of training and on the quality of working life.

Women in medicine: a four-nation comparison.

Objectives: to determine the impact of increasing numbers of women in medicine on the physician work force in Australia, Canada, England, and the United States.

Methods: We collected data on physician work force issues from professional organizations and government agencies in each of the 4 nations.

Results: Women now make up nearly half of all medical students in all 4 countries and 20% to 30% of all practicing physicians.