Doctors Retire

Doctors Retire and shortage looms July 17, 2005 - 7:54AM The retirement of "baby boomer" doctors and nurses will place unprecedented pressure on Australia's medical workforce in the next 20 years, researchers have warned.

Deborah Schofield and John Beard, of the University of Sydney, suggested governments should consider offering incentives to ageing health workers, such as taxation concessions, to encourage them to remain in the workforce longer, even at reduced hours.

"It is widely anticipated that retirement among ageing clinicians will result in workforce shortages within the next five years," they wrote in the latest Medical Journal of Australia.

Associate Professor Schofield and Professor Beard analysed previously unpublished data from Australian Bureau of Statistics census surveys between 1986 and 2001 to examine trends in the retirement patterns of GPs, medical specialists and registered nurses.

They found the baby boomer generation, those born between 1945 and 1961, made up more than half the medical and nursing workforce in 2001.

If baby boomer nurses left the workforce at the same rate as previous generations, all but a handful would have retired within the next 15 years, the researchers said.

"As the oldest baby boomers turn 59 this year, we are on the cusp of this rapid attrition from the nursing workforce," they wrote.

"The decline in nursing undergraduate commencements over the 10 years to 2003 will only exacerbate the emerging shortage.

"It is important to increase labour force participation of older nurses and, in particular, we need to examine how nurses could be encouraged to stay in the workforce longer."

Addressing workplace, health and safety issues or increasing the flexibility of shift work for nurses may be as important to workforce longevity as economic incentives, the researchers suggested.

"For example the creation of less physically demanding jobs, such as practice nursing in a general practice clinic, may provide positions which are attractive to nurses considering retirement," they wrote.

The research found a large number of GPs continued to work beyond the traditional retirement age of 65 but generally put in fewer hours in 2001 than they did in 1986.

Generation X GPs, born between 1961 and 1981, also work fewer hours than the baby boomers did at the same age.

"There is a need to encourage ongoing employment among older clinicians, continued participation of younger workers, and continued improvement of labour productivity," the researchers said.

"The policy response will be crucial to ensure that the Australian health workforce is adequate to meet the growing community demand of the 21st century."

Shortages in medical specialties are expected to be more acute in some areas than others.

"For example, the average age of emergency medicine specialists in 2002 was 41 years, compared with 54 years for general surgery," the authors said. Doctors Retire