What Are The Hot Specialties Today?
We receive calls and emails daily from residents, medical students, college students and even their parents wanting to know which medical specialties are in the greatest demand. Quite naturally, people want to be assured that there will be a demand for whatever specialty they (or their children) decide on. After considerable time, effort and money spent on a medical education, no one wants to face the prospect of unemployment or underemployment.
A detailed look at physician supply and demand trends can be found on this site in the article A Look at U.S. Physician Supply and Demand Trends. While the latter article outlines why we believe demand for physicians will remain strong in the short-term and the long-term, in this section we will look at what types of physicians are being aggressively recruited today.
Merritt Hawkins & Associates, the nation's largest physician search firm (and one of the sponsors of this site) tracks physician recruiting trends through several surveys, including its 2008 Review of Physician Recruiting Incentives.
In this survey, Merritt Hawkins & Associates tracks the recruitment assignments it conducted over the previous 12 months to determine what types of physicians its clients are recruiting and what kinds of incentives clients are offering to physician candidates. Merritt Hawkins & Associates conducts some 3,200 permanent physician search assignments annually nationwide, and its 2008 Review is widely referenced throughout the healthcare staffing industry as reflective of current physician recruiting trends.
In the 12 months from April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008, the top 20 types of physician search assignments Merritt Hawkins & Associates conducted were:
Family Practice
Internal Medicine
Hospitalist
OB/GYN
Orthopedic Surgery
Radiology
Psychiatry
Emergency Medicine
Neurology
General Surgery
Urology
Pediatrics
Cardiology
Gastroenterology
CRNA
Anesthesiology
Pulmonology
Otolaryngology
HEM/ONC
Dermatology
While these were the searches most frequently requested by Merritt Hawkins & Associates’ clients, the firm also searches in dozens of other specialties, from allergy to vascular surgery. As a general rule, there is a demand for virtually every type of medical specialist today. Radiologists are in particularly high demand and are difficult to come by, as are cardiologists and orthopedic surgeons, for reasons explained in the article referenced above.
Though hospitals, medical groups and other employers are finding it more challenging to recruit specialists, this does not mean they have lost interest in recruiting primary care physicians.
Primary care physicians coming out of training may find that there are many positions available. In fact, today primary care physicians are more requested to fill openings than any other type of doctor because physician training in the U.S. remains static and demand is increasing.
There is no lack of available practices. The old slogan in the physician staffing industry (i.e., "There is no such thing as an unemployed physician") is as true today as when it was coined in the early 1980s. Trends come and go, and at times, certain types of physicians have more opportunities and greater latitude in their choices than others. In general, however, a physician who is well trained and has a positive attitude will always find a welcome somewhere.
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