[Young physicians and their private practice]

A postal survey was carried out in Spring 1999 on a random sample of 3623 physicians having settled up their private practice during the first half of the 90's. The number of replies amounted to more than 1800. The proportion who "bought the right to be introduced to the clientele" have raised during the recent years. Those who bought the "right" succeeded to obtain more rapidly a "sufficient" number of patients. In general, the financial situation of French young practitioners was good during the 90's. The proportion of failures was not higher than 3%. France has been characterized by large gaps between its geographical areas as concerns medical staffing, a feature potentially harmful to equity in access to health services. In view of designing sound policies in the matter, medical practitioners were asked if they accepted to change their installation site in case an allowance of 50,000 Francs (about 76,000 Euros) was granted. Less than 4% replied "yes" and 18% "perhaps" to the question. These figures concerned changes of site within the same region. The prospects of migrating to an other region gathered even less enthusiasm. It is evident that policies aimed at reshaping geographic medical staffing should be multi-faceted and not grounded on simple financial allowances.