[Medical doctors in private practice in the Greater Paris area. General presentation and overview of results].
The French physician workforce, after decades of growth, will be soon entering a decreasing era. The demographic revolution will affect all parts of the country, including the region Ile de France which has the highest physician/population ratio. An opinion survey conducted among a sample of 1700 physicians gathered 770 replies in March 2003. The difficulties most frequently mentioned by the surveyed doctors are heavy taxes and social contributions (mentioned by 77%), problems for finding locum tenens (52%), traffic jams (48%), irrelevant requests from patients (45%), problems for finding nurses to care patients (28%), conflicts with the sickness fund (24%), lack of security (23%). It is noteworthy that the problems related to locum tenens and nurses are directly associated to the demographic situation of French health workforce. When asked about the risks associated to medical practice, 62% of the surveyed physicians quote the difficulty to combine harmoniously professional practice and family life whereas 60% mention low occupational income. But the highest risk after the surveyed doctors is their legal responsibility (68%). Certain modifications of French regulation concerning medical practice to cope with the forthcoming decrease in the numbers of doctors are approved. In particular, the possibility for a doctor in private practice to hire the services of an other doctor (approved by 41%) and that of having several medical offices (31%).
D010297:Paris; D010820:Physicians; D011331:Private Practice / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*