New Fellows Early Career Survey 2014-2017: Shift of trends in emergency medicine workforce

Within the complex and dynamic emergency medicine workforce setting, the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) New Fellows (FACEMs) Early Career Survey was established in 2014 to capture information on the work profiles, future career plans and challenges experienced among new FACEMs.

The voluntary online survey is distributed twice yearly to new FACEMs who gained their Fellowship the preceding 6-12 months. Eligible new FACEMs were contacted by email and invited to participate.

A representative sample of 348 (53%) of 660 eligible new FACEMs responded to the survey from 2014 to 2017. New Fellows in the 2017 cohort were less likely to have secured a specialist position at attainment of Fellowship or 6-12 months later. Compared with new FACEMs in earlier cohorts, they were significantly more likely to be working in regional areas, across multiple workplaces and in more than one area of clinical/professional practice. The proportion of new FACEMs working part-time or in casual positions (42%) remained reasonably consistent across the 4 years. Finding a specialist position and securing a permanent position were among the main challenges experienced by new FACEMs after attaining their Fellowship.

A shift in the employment profile of early career Fellows was observed between 2014 and 2017, with the potential push factor of limited specialist positions in metropolitan areas now starting to result in an increase in new FACEMs choosing to work in regional and rural areas and in the number working across multiple workplaces.