Toward a Better Understanding of Primary Care Physician Career Typologies

The nation faces a persistent shortage and maldistribution of primary care physicians (PCPs). A better understanding of PCP career typologies could help policy makers target interventions toward certain subgroups, rather than using a "one-size fits all" approach to improving PCP supply, distribution and diversity across settings and in rural areas.

This study used cross-sectional data from 2009 and 2019, derived from the North Carolina (NC) Medical Board, on PCPs in active practice in family medicine, general internal medicine, general pediatrics, geriatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology in NC. We used latent class analysis (LCA) to investigate: (1) whether different career typologies exist in the primary care physician workforce; (2) if so, whether career typologies changed in the 10-year period before the COVID-19 pandemic (2009 and 2019); and (3) whether a physician's generational cohort, age, sex, race/ethnicity, career stage, and medical school location were associated with different career typologies.

The LCA yielded 4 distinct career typologies in both 2009 and 2019 with high levels of class separation. The 4 typologies were relatively stable over the decade. Distinguishing factors between typologies included practice in a rural area, hospital, and ambulatory care employment, and provision of obstetric and prenatal care.

Understanding PCP career typologies could be used to tailor interventions to improve the supply and distribution of PCP workforce. Medical schools could use this information to support trainees' decision-making about future careers and policy makers to target funding for training to support careers in rural and ambulatory settings.