Both of these projects will require your assistance to enhance the current database of demographics, educational and professional C.V.'s, and photographs. When we call on you this fall, please be willing to provide us this information and sit for a new photograph. An additional 10 percent said they hope to find a job in a nonmedical or nonclinical setting, Merritt reports. Merritt's chief executive, Joseph Hawkins, said the findings reflect a dramatic change in attitude from a generation ago, when older physicians were the profession's workhorses and carried the biggest patient loads. And younger doctors aren't stepping in to pick up the slack as older physicians leave the field, Hawkins said.
Quality of life is more important to the younger physicians.
The survey indicates that managed care is driving many of the older physicians into retirement. More than 50 percent of the doctors Merritt surveyed said managed care was their No.1 professional frustration. Hawkins said that retirements could hurt short-staffed hospitals and clinics. Few hospitals have succession plans and often must scramble to find replacements, he said. The survey found that only 30 percent of these older physicians had made plans to transfer their patients to to other doctors when they retire.