AME survey-003 A1-part 2: the motivation factors of medical doctors in China.

backgroundThe professional moral and job satisfaction of medical profession remain highly disputed in media in China. On the other hand, there is wide disaffection of patients toward doctors in China. This survey aims to obtain a better understanding of the motivation of Chinese medical professionals.

methodsAn anonymous online cross-sectional survey, AME survey III, was conducted using the platform provided by DXY (www.dxy.cn) during the period of September 10-23, 2015. In total 2,356 DXY users completed the survey, including 1,740 males and 617 females, with a mean age of 31.96±7.03 yrs.

resultsThe reasons (multiple choices) for career disaffection included poor patient/doctor relationship (88.6%), imbalance between workload and pay (79.5%), could not enter the preferred specialty (14.14%), and working in small clinics with no career progress (11.17%). If given the choice to enter the specialty as well as the hospital grade of their choice, 73.8% dissatisfied respondents replied they would like to be a doctor. For the dis-satisfied respondents, university teacher appeared to be the most popular career choice. The cited high workload was considered to be due to (I) imbalance in geographical allocation of doctors and insufficient training of doctors; (II) many red-tapism formalities; (III) Chinese patients often have unreasonable requests; (IV) over-examination and over-treatment; (V) high pressure to publish papers. One hundred and twelve respondents have their child/children attending university or graduated from university, 25.0% of them are pursuing a career in medicine. Nine hundred and ninety respondents have child/children while did not reach university age yet, among them 23.62% would like their child/children to study medicine. 64.87% of the 2,356 participants favor China to open up medical market to qualified foreign medical organizations to take part in fair competition, and 57.91% favor the government supporting regulated private hospitals.

conclusionsThe moral and motivation of medical doctors in China are likely to be similar to other continuously evolving societies. Cost-effective use of existing resources should be explored as the first priority.