Physicians mobility in family medicine practice: Example of Tokat province
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15511/tahd.17.00301Keywords:
Family physician, family medicine practice, physicians mobilityAbstract
Introduction: In Tokat province in August 2010 Family Medicine Practice (FMP) was started with 164 family physicians (FP). In course of time, empty locations that occurred because of appointment, military service, giving birth or physicians own requests. Additional replacements were made for empty and/or new positions at regular intervals. It was aimed to evaluate the newcomer, transposition and leaving the system physicians of FMP in Tokat province.
Materials and Methods: Forty additional replacements were made from the beginning of FMP to this study which is 2015 January. For this descriptive study, the list of FP which is updated each month was obtained retrospectively.
Results: From August 2010 to January 2015, only 48.2% (n=79) of FP remained at the same location. In this period, 94 FP joined in the FMP, 99 FP changed their locations, 84 FP left the FMP. At the initial situation, the average age of physicians was 38.3 ± 8.0 years, 71.6% were male and 6.1% were family medicine specialists and at present, the average age of the physicians is 40.5 ± 8.7 years, 72.2% are male and 7.3% are family medicine specialists. There was a significant difference in mean age of physicians from beginning to this study (p<0.05). In 53.2% (n=50) of the cases, newcomer physicians’ working positions before FMP were emergency service. The most common reasons of leaving FMP were; 37.5% (n=33) appointment somewhere else, 17% (n=15) becoming manager in health institutions and 13.6% (n=12) returning to their previous working positions.
Conclusions: During the first four years of FMP, because of various reasons, more than half of FP changed their location or left the FMP. Emergency services being the most common previous working positions of FP, shows the importance of in-service training regarding primary health care services. To provide continuity of primary health care services and to ensure best suitable working place for FP, further research concerning causes of physicians’ mobility should be performed, essential measures should be taken to reduce mobility.
