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As mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, we’re taking some time to look at the increasing challenge of recruiting quality physicians and as discussed, the profession is going to be rocked by a series of changes, most notably the gender change.

The Changing Face of Medicine, due out later this year, will address the issue of the gender changes coming in the medical field.  From the blurb:

The number of women practicing medicine in the United States has grown steadily since the late 1960s, with women now roughly at parity with men among entering medical students. Why did so many women enter American medicine? How are women faring, professionally and personally, once they become physicians? Are women transforming the way medicine is practiced? To answer these questions, The Changing Face of Medicine draws on a wide array of sources, including interviews with women physicians and surveys of medical students and practitioners. The analysis is set in the twin contexts of a rapidly evolving medical system and profound shifts in gender roles in American society.

Throughout the book, Ann K. Boulis and Jerry A. Jacobs critically examine common assumptions about women in medicine. For example, they find that women’s entry into medicine has less to do with the decline in status of the profession and more to do with changes in women’s roles in contemporary society. Women physicians’ families are becoming more and more like those of other working women. Still, disparities in terms of specialty, practice ownership, academic rank, and leadership roles endure, and barriers to opportunity persist… Women’s presence in American medicine will continue to grow beyond the 50 percent mark, but the authors question whether this change by itself will make American medicine more caring and more patient centered. The future direction of the profession will depend on whether women doctors will lead the effort to chart a new course for health care delivery in the United States.

Here’s the other statistic that gave me pause: 74% of Boomer doctors retiring in the next 20 years are men.

Think that doesn’t require a complete rethink of how you recruit these docs?

We’ve done a fair amount of research this year on the impact of the physician shortage and how it will hamstring the marketing, planning, and delivery of healthcare services in the future.

The silent killer is patient access.   The less chance a patient has of being seen quickly, the worse off he or she will be.  Having an adequate supply of doctors is the basic ingredient of healthcare delivery.  And primary care doctors, who provide those front-line services, are getting even harder to find.

Here’s three reasons why you might be facing an uphill battle, wherever you are.

1. Supply is dwindling.

The AMA reports that nearly half of its members are 50 or older.   If you segment out primary care docs, the news gets worse.   Medical schools are graduating an increasing rate of some specialists, but primary-care graduate rates are falling as medical school becomes an increasingly costly investment.   In the wake of the Patriot Act and the falling value of the dollar, there’s also the fact that more international students are going back home instead of staying put.   (Thomas Friedman calls this the “reverse brain drain” in his book, The World is Flat.)

2. Demand is growing. 

The US population continues to a) grow and b) require more healthcare.   From an economic point of view, there’s no reason to think demand will curtail any time soon.  In fact, hospitals are seeking to drive more care to newly created Centers of Excellence to address complex diseases and conditions.  As more people demand more care from more providers, the rate of demand increases in both directions: hospitals need more doctors to improve patient access as well as treatment.  A client recently told me that a few treatment positions added to ease the strain on the existing physicians were now completely swamped with diagnostic visits.

3. Increasing alternatives to traditional practice models.

While graduating physicians can choose to start or join a traditional practice, there are a variety of other avenues as a result of the changing demands of new docs.  Whether hospitalist positions, physician-run speciality practices, locum tenens assignments, or roles within bio-tech companies, these options often provide fewer hours and more work/life balance than the classic physician practice model.  (Example: many hospitals around the country are now paying for “on call” services.)  Considering that 50% of the med school population are now women, these options will increase, primarily clustered around delivering less hours and less stress.

What’s the solution?

More on that later this week, but we’ll give you a hint: it has something to do with our upcoming webinar.

When you speak at tradeshows as I often do, there’s a relief in going first.  Our good friend Kevin Robinson from SVHC helped us with our talk yesterday.   What I thought was going to be the more interesting side of the story — all the research and thinking that went into targeting how to whom we designed the website — turned out to be less interesting than the actual campaign and the results. 

The campaign started due to a 25 position shortage on a staff only comprising 140 docs.  SVHC has a great internal recruiter, but they were still shelling out major dollars for outside help as well.  The worst part was they had only 10 viable candidates in their application pool for 25 positions in September – the beginning of recruiting season.  A bad situation for sure.

Well, we were a little more than halfway through the talk and explain our approach and how and why things work and an attendee raised their hand to ask, “Ok, it’s a nice site, but how did you measure results?  Visitors?  Hits?”

Nope.  Docs hired.

Everyone who had been half-paying attention sat up straight. 

The next question: “How many docs did you hire?”

We increased the application pool from 10 to 120, signed 10 doctors in the last 6 months, and are on track to have committments from all 25 open positions this year. 

More stunned silence.

And then I realized, the research was good and all, but the results are what made this a successful project and worthy of talking about.  We probably should have loaded that up front and then gone back over the strategy. 

In chatting about it after with my co-presenters Kevin and Sarah,  I realized my fear was the take away might be “all I need is to put up some videos on a website,” when the actual work was much more sophisticated and focused than that. 

Here’s a link to the Southwestern Vermont Professionals Recruitment Website again for those who haven’t seen it.

We’ll likely re-give the talk as a webinar in May, so keep your eyes peeled. 

More press about us. Good timing too, since we’re speaking at CBM together.

BENNINGTON - By emphasizing the Southern Vermont lifestyle to doctors on their new recruitment Web site, local hospital officials have increased the number of potential recruits by about tenfold.Southwestern Vermont Medical Center’s physician recruiting Web site, on the Internet at www.greenmtnsgreatdocs.org, includes such features as a video with testimony from doctors who already work at the Bennington hospital, doctor profiles, links to available housing and a list of open positions.Kevin Robinson, communications director for the hospital’s parent organization, Southwestern Vermont Health Care, pointed out that the site also appeals to a potential recruit’s private life.

Read the full story.