UK-trained junior doctors' intentions to work in UK medicine: questionnaire surveys, three years after graduation

Abstract

Objective: To report on the career intentions, three years after qualification, of 12 national cohorts of UK-trained doctors who qualified between 1974 and 2012, and, specifically, to compare recent UK medical graduates’ intentions to work in medicine in the UK with earlier graduates. Design: Questionnaire surveys of cohorts of UK medical graduates defined by year of graduation. Setting: UK. Participants: 30,272 UK medical graduates. Main outcome measures: Stated level of intention to pursue a long-term career in medicine in the UK. Results: The response rate was 62% (30,272/48,927). We examined responses to the question ‘Apart from temporary visits abroad, do you intend to practise medicine in the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future?' Of doctors from UK homes, 90% had specified that they would ‘definitely or probably’ practise medicine in the UK in the surveys of 1977–1986, 81% in 1996–2011 and 64% in 2015. Those who said that they would probably or definitely not practise medicine in the UK comprised 5% in 1977–1986, 8% in 1996–2011 and 15% in 2015. Most who were not definite about a future career in UK medicine indicated that they would wish to practise medicine outside the UK rather than to leave medicine. Conclusions: The wish to remain in UK medical practice in the 2015 survey was unprecedentedly low in this unique series of 40 years of surveys.