BACKGROUND In Finland the number of medical specialists varies between specialties and regions. More regulation of the post-graduate medical training is planned. Therefore, it is important to clarify what predicts doctors' satisfaction with their chosen specialty. METHODS A random sample contained 50% of all Finnish doctors under 70 years of age. The respose rate was 50.5%. Working-age specia...

The recent rise of specialty hospitals--typically for-profit firms that are at least partially owned by physicians--has led to substantial debate about their effects on the cost and quality of care. Advocates of specialty hospitals claim they improve quality and lower cost; critics contend they concentrate on providing profitable procedures and attracting relatively healthy patients, leaving (p...

In this paper, we study physician specialty decisions using several unique data sets which include information on almost all Canadian physicians who practised in Canada between 1989 and 1998. Unlike previous studies, we use a truly exogenous measure of potential income across general and specialty medicine to estimate the effect of income on physicians' specialty choices. Furthermore, our estim...