Exit Strategies: The Timing and Impacts of Physician Retirements

Much has been made over the past fifteen years about the actual or impending shortage of physicians in Canada. The aging of the patient population increases the need, while the aging of the physician population reduces the supply. Recent dramatic increases in the number of medical students being trained in Canada should go some distance in addressing supply concerns. Less well-understood is the potential effect of changes in physicians’ decisions about when, and how quickly, to retire. Despite the fact that retirement decisions can have a large influence on the total available supply of physicians, surprisingly little is known about those decisions. The purpose of this project is to fill in some of those gaps in our understanding.

Much has been made over the past fifteen years about the actual or impending shortage of physicians in Canada. The aging of the patient population increases the need, while the aging of the physician population reduces the supply. Recent dramatic increases in the number of medical students being trained in Canada should go some distance in addressing supply concerns. Less well-understood is the potential effect of changes in physicians’ decisions about when, and how quickly, to retire. Despite the fact that retirement decisions can have a large influence on the total available supply of physicians, surprisingly little is known about those decisions. The purpose of this project is to fill in some of those gaps in our understanding. It will focus on:

1. whether retirement patterns of B.C. physicians have changed over recent decades and, if so, the implications for future physician supply;
2. whether the financial market turmoil in 2008-09 has affected those retirement decisions or patterns; and
3. what happens to patients of primary care physicians who retire or reduce their hours of clinical work.

This project involves collaboration between UBC’s Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, the B.C. Ministry of Health Services, four of the province’s health authorities, and the Western and Northern Health Human Resources Planning Forum.