More doctors are staying in state after residency training

As the largest producer of physicians in the country, New York has always seen a drain of doctors after they finish their residency. But as the physician labor market has recovered from a dip following the pandemic, the survey data shows that the state’s retention of trainees has steadily increased.

“We’re never going to keep them all per se,” said Dr. David Armstrong, project director of the center’s data system, who led the survey. “It’s good to see that return on investment.”

The investment is significant. Graduate medical education in New York is a $4.4 billion a year industry, according to the center, with many of the country’s largest teaching institutions concentrated in the five boroughs. But while the state’s retention rate is improving, some specialties have better outlooks than others and doctors are still unlikely to go to rural and underserved areas, the data shows.

Roughly three-quarters of doctors going into adult psychiatry, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and family medicine reported they planned to stay. Doctors in other specialties were far less likely to remain in the state, with only 17% of physicians going into orthopedics and 28% specializing in pulmonary disease reporting they would stay. According to Armstrong, that indicates the high degree of variability in local opportunities.

Despite that variability, the overriding factor dictating where a doctor will end up was their family ties, according to the survey, which included responses from 2,300 residents and fellows. Of the respondents, 76% of those who also went to high school in New York said they would stay. At the same time, 32% of doctors leaving the state said they would do so to be closer to family.

But money is also a factor. Just 4% of respondents said they planned to work in rural areas and only 16% said they would work in areas designated by the federal government to have a shortage of health care professionals.

One of the drivers of doctors to urban areas, where pay is generally higher, is the huge amount of debt they often incur to pay for medical school, according to Armstrong.