More on Age and Physicians
see also Divisions in Physician Career and Location Choice Related to Age at Graduation
The FM cohort group is board certified FP grads of 1997 - 2003.
The front line specialties in primary care and mental health all have increasing choice with age. Emergency med does taper off a bit after an early rise, but it is a new specialty with difficulty in interpretation. Research careers are also more likely with older graduates. The most elite research schools do manage to graduate more researchers who were younger than 30 at graduation from medical school, but these same schools graduated twice the percentage of those who were older than 29 at graduation into research careers. The most complex and demanding careers involving the most dedication and persistence naturally favor older, more mature physicians (maturity also a factor due to overcoming obstacles, wealth of experiences, not just years). see Research By the Ages regarding why admissions for research is not working and how it could work for research, and physician distribution..
Does athletic excellence go with academic excellent and MCAT? Reflect on the younger age at graduation and higher MCAT relationship in orthopedics physicians?
The more schools are dependent upon the MCAT, the more they admit younger students and the more subspecialists that they graduate.
Internal medicine is very constant in various types of schools over decades of time at about 15%.
Anesthesia may have "overproduced" just prior to managed care, leading to a more significant decline than most during this period.
More on Age and Physicians
Robert C. Bowman, M.D.
10/13/04