Career satisfaction and retention risk among Wisconsin internists

Physician career satisfaction has been studied extensively, but career satisfaction as it relates to retention is less well studied. The objective was to assess the relationship between career satisfaction and retention in primary care internal medicine physicians in Wisconsin.

In this descriptive quantitative study, survey data was assessed for correlations between career satisfaction, risk to retention, and demographics. The survey included 1231 primary care internal medicine physicians in the Wisconsin Medical Directory (2007).

Responses were measured by career satisfaction variables, and demographics and retention variables for the purpose of correlations and regression analysis.

Survey responses included 573 physicians. An additional 85 physicians were disqualified. The final survey group included 1146 physicians for a response rate of 50%. A total of 116 physicians (20.2%) reported anticipating leaving their current position, 84 (14.7%) physicians reported anticipating leaving the career of medicine. Identified at risk for retention were 144 (25.1%) physicians. The lowest career satisfaction scores were reported in the areas of compensation (3.19) and practice (3.42) on a scale of 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied). The highest correlations to retention were associated with practice, followed by compensation satisfaction. The level of significance for this study was identified as 0.05, and the P-value was 0.000.

The study findings reveal a significant risk to the stability of continuity of care for patients, and may cost Wisconsin health care organizations more than $35 million in recruitment costs to replace departing physicians.