More than 100 doctors are currently undergoing registrarships as specialist occupational physicians in Australia, and will bring the age profile of the profession back into balance, according to the president of Australasian Faculty of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (AFOEM).
Recent figures from the Australian Health Practitioner Registration Agency survey show that more than half of all registered occupational physicians in Australia are now older than 55, with far fewer registered specialists coming through in the younger cohorts.
It is a global issue.
As reported by OHS Alert last week, an international survey found that many countries have an ageing workforce of occupational physicians and expect a shortfall of these specialists over the next 10 years (see related article).
It also found that many large Australian and New Zealand employers that previously directly employed occupational physicians have outsourced the role to private consultants.
But AFOEM president Associate Professor Peter Connaughton told OHS Alert that attitudes to the specialty are changing.
He says that of the 100-plus doctors undergoing their four-year registraships in occupational and environmental medicine, the vast majority are under the age of 34.
He says that as they complete their training they will replenish Australia's stocks of younger specialists in the field.
Connaughton says there has been a major structural change in the way occupational physicians worked over the last 15 years, with major companies moving away from direct employment of doctors and engaging them on a contract basis, or using some of the large corporatised providers of medical services.
He says this structural change, and the fact that some of the corporate medical providers use lower-cost, non-specialist practitioners to provide occupational services, might have created some uncertainty among doctors about entering the speciality.
However, he says that in more recent years there has been a reverse-trend occurring, with large companies again moving to directly employ specialist occupational and environmental physicians.
This, together with efforts by the faculty to promote the specialty among undergraduate doctors, has led to renewed interest from young practitioners, Connaughton says.
