Day 3: For Young Doctors, Hospital Paycheck Trumps Solo Practice

For newly trained physicians Kristin and Brian Gillenwater, mornings are a rush.

They grab a bite of breakfast. They get Henry, their 1-year-old, ready for day care, then drive off in different directions for a busy day seeing patients.

The Gillenwaters don’t head to their own practices.

An independent practice doesn’t hold the same attraction for them as it did for earlier generations of physicians. Independent practice means managing a business and working long, unpredictable hours for what’s become an increasingly less certain income.

Instead, growing numbers of doctors of the millennial generation like the Gillenwaters are choosing employment, most often by hospitals.

Millennial physicians are entering the job market at a time when hospitals nationwide have been hiring thousands of doctors and snapping up hundreds of practices of older, independent doctors.