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Analysis into why some areas of the nation lack sufficient medical doctors has revealed the the reason why medical professionals want sure places over others.
The paper, titled “Medical training pathways and underdoctored areas: a qualitative study of doctors working in areas that struggle to recruit and retain” is by Liz Brewster, Michael Lambert, Choon Key Chekar, Clare Mumford, Tasneem Patel, Nicola Rennie and Cliff Shelton from Lancaster Medical College. It’s revealed in Well being & Place.
Interviews had been carried out with 100 medical doctors working in three “undoctored” areas between December 2022 and March 2024, throughout a spread of medical doctors working in major and secondary care, at completely different profession phases, and with a spread of demographic traits equivalent to age, gender and ethnicity.
Lead writer Dr. Brewster stated, “Undoctored areas are, by definition, these with ongoing points in recruitment and retention of a medical workforce and understanding the motivations for working in these places is essential for leveraging entry to care in these places.
“By examining routes into a location and the impact of different life stages, we have described some of the rationales for working in these areas and reflected on how these decisions were often driven by compromises.”
Docs introduced advanced, intertwined accounts of their rationale for working in these areas, which encompassed parts of household life, profession satisfaction and place traits.
Prioritizing individuals
For a lot of members, the driving think about the place they lived and labored was guided by these round them (e.g., household, companions, pals).
A medical advisor within the Northwest, Tegan, stated, “I can’t imagine me leaving. Personally, because I’m from this area, live in this area, my family are in this area, I wouldn’t be planning to move anywhere else.”
Prioritizing place
A smaller quantity expressed their decision-making as being pushed by the place itself, typically primarily based on the points of interest of surroundings or outside alternatives.
Northern GP Yasmin stated, “We both wanted to be somewhere more rural. And I took a locum job in Cumbria, and we ended up staying here. West Cumbria is an environment all of its own, so a lot of poverty, a lot of needs. It was challenging but on the doorstep of some of the world’s most stunning scenery.”
Prioritizing profession
Nevertheless, a extra frequent rationalization for ending up working in an underdoctored space was due to profession alternatives or different work-related points of interest.
One other advisor within the Northwest, Xavier, stated, “I deliberately picked [deprived town in northern England], because I could tell that it would allow me to do as much as possible of what I had trained to do to as high a level as I possibly could.”
Any selection primarily based on one in every of these elements had potential penalties for the others. For some members, these intertwined elements had been aligned, which enabled them to settle in place, however for others, the elements had been in battle, and compromises needed to be made.
Dr. Brewster stated, “Our analysis highlights a number of the patterns the place specific sorts of selections are made, which can be helpful for contemplating future workforce planning.
“We discovered that for the medical doctors in our research, these expectations of mobility in early coaching usually led to a need to cool down in a spot long run. Location of medical faculty didn’t appear to be a deciding issue until there have been different affordances provided by the place.
“These findings raise questions about what might shift perceptions of places, what meaningful work looks like alongside a good quality of life, and what might be altered to encourage more doctors to work in particular areas.”
Extra info:
Liz Brewster et al, Medical coaching pathways and underdoctored areas: a qualitative research of medical doctors working in areas that wrestle to recruit and retain, Well being & Place (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2025.103560
Offered by
Lancaster College
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Analysis examines how medical doctors select the place to reside and work (2025, November 3)
retrieved 3 November 2025
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