The employment gap: the relationship between medical student career choices and the future needs of the New Zealand medical workforce

AIMS: To determine the career decision intentions of graduating doctors, and the relationship between these intentions and the predicted medical workforce needs in New Zealand in 10 years' time. METHODS: A workforce forecasting model developed by the Ministry of Health (MOH) has been used to predict the proportion of doctors required in each medical specialty in 2028 in New Zealand. The future work intentions of recently graduated doctors at the Universities of Auckland and Otago were collected from the Medical Student Outcomes Data (MSOD), and compared with these predicted needs. RESULTS: Between 2013 and 2017, 2,292 doctors graduated in New Zealand, of whom 1,583 completed the MSOD preferences section (response rate 69%). Of these only 50.1% had decided on a future medical specialty. The most popular were surgical specialties (26.2%), general practice (20.7%), and internal medicine (11.0%). Compared to the MOH workforce forecast model there appears to be insuffiicient interest in general practice at the time of graduation. CONCLUSIONS: To shape the medical workforce to meet forecast needs, multiple stakeholders will need to collaborate, with a special focus on the early postgraduate years, as many doctors have yet to decide on specialisation.