More medical students are opting for a job as company doctors because it offers a better work-life balance than treating patients in hospital.

Figures from medical specialists monitor Capaciteitsorgaan show the number of new recruits increased sevenfold in the last decade, from 20 in 2014 to 140 in 2024.

“Most medical students want to be surgeons in a hospital but an increasing number change their minds during training,” chair of the company doctors’ organisation Jonge Bedrijfsartsen Friso Muntinghe told broadcaster NOS.

“It’s a generational change. Young doctors say there’s more to life than the job alone.”

Established family doctors and hospital doctors are also switching to working for a company; some 30% of new recruits come from other specialties, he said.

Company doctors are no longer seen as the long arm of the company and can make a difference when it comes to working conditions, Boyd Thijssens of the association of occupational medicine NVAB said. Campaigns to alleviate the lack of company doctors have also helped, he said.

Irregular shifts

“But the main factor is the culture of irregular shifts and long hours at hospitals. Company doctors have more time per patient, and their working day ends at 5pm,” he said.

A quarter of doctors studying to become medical specialists have considered leaving the profession, a 2021 survey showed, and some 8% do leave, often when they are already ten years into their training, because of structural long hours.

According to the Capaciteitsorgaan’s estimate for the years 2027 to 2030, more students will be needed for all medical specialisms, particularly physician assistants and nurse practitioners, as well as specialists in geriatrics and social medicine.