Demographers use different age ranges to define the millennial generation, but the most common seem to include those born between the years of 1984 to 2000; and by this criterion, they’re a huge cohort: 76 million people in 2017, nearly a quarter of the US population.
This statistic serves the landscape of healthcare as both an enormous opportunity and a possible conundrum in need of strategic maneuvering.
Currently millennials are making their way into medicine in a big way. According to the latest AMA survey data, in 2015 about 155,000 US physicians, 15% of the total, were under age 35, and a quarter of the American Academy of Family Physicians’ active members were 39 or younger. One-fourth of the American Osteopathic Association’s membership was 35 or younger.1
There’s been a flood of description and analysis of this generation, with pundits generally oscillating between a negative and a positive pole: millennials are self-absorbed and entitled; millennials are idealistic and open-minded. Their impact on the workplace has been extensively analyzed from both points of view and everything in between.
Healthcare leaders are faced with the difficult task of juggling the needs and wants of their organization and their millennial physicians. Balancing the two parties can prove to be a cumbersome task, one requiring the involvement and participation of each and every healthcare team member.
Download the infographic for a snapshot of what millennial physicians seek in the healthcare field and the issues healthcare leaders are juggling.