Physicians’ job satisfaction in their begin, mid and end career stage

Abstract

Objective: To examine whether physicians differ in job satisfaction in different career stages, controlling for “gender”, “specialty area” and “level of income”.

Methods: Survey of three cohorts of physicians who started studying in 1972-75 (n = 704), 1982/83 (n = 301) and 1992/93 (n = 296) at the University of Groningen. Physicians in the begin, mid and end career stage practiced for 10, 20 and 30 years respectively. Data were collected by telephonic interviews and written questionnaires. We selected 13 job satisfaction aspects which could be mapped unto Ostroff’s taxonomy of organizational climate perceptions. Influences of gender, specialty area and level of income were taken into account.

Results: Physicians in begin, mid and end career stage differed on eight aspects. Taking into account gender, specialty area and level of income, differences between career stages were significant for three aspects: appreciation from support personnel, appreciation from patients and satisfaction with income. Specialty area was the most important covariate.

Conclusions: Physicians from different career stages differed in job satisfaction, but specialty area accounted to a large extent for these differences. We recommend taking into account physicians’ career stage, gender and specialty area when studying physicians’ job satisfaction.