Physicians who move and why: from residency to practice, 1974-1978

As medical residents leave their residencies, a majority also move away from the locales in which they received their training. Data presented in this paper on physicians entering their first professional positions between 1974 and 1978 show that over 65 percent left the counties of their residencies. Following the national migration pattern of the civilian population, the medical residents left the northern "Frost Belt" and entered the southern "Sun Belt" of the United States. Physician "movers" typically were in nonprimary care medical specialties and moved into self-employment or office-based medical practices. These migrating physicians, compared with physician "stayers," were disproportionately male, more often resided in states other than those of their medical education, and moved into smaller urban or nonurban centers of the United States. Other characteristics that distinguish movers from stayers also are presented here.