One in three Australian GPs plan to stop practising within five years, and 63% are also considering reducing their hours (RACGP, General Practice: Health of the Nation 2025, survey of 2,416 practising GPs).
Research on how people choose work, and why they stay in it, is extensive and largely ignored in general practice. This article sets out what it says, where it stops, and how Medius Match uses it.
The three-legged stool
Ronald Howard, a Stanford professor and one of the founders of decision analysis, described the basis of any decision as a three-legged stool: the alternatives a person has, the information they hold about them, and their preferences. Without any one of them, no decision can be made (Howard 2007; Howard and Abbas 2016).
Medius Match is built to that shape. Medius supplies the alternatives, the positions registered by organisations and found in the weekly scan, and the information, a match note setting out what each position offers and what it asks. Only the person can supply the preferences. So Medius introduces, and the person decides.
Chris Mitchell puts preferences in the same terms. His three legs are family, business, and personal development, and he asks others for theirs: 'What are yours (three or more is fine, some people are more complex than me)'. The legs differ from person to person, and they are rarely equal. A GP with young children and a practice to manage stands on different ground from a GP cutting sessions before retirement. Each sets the legs differently, and what works for one is wrong for the other.
A leg counts only if it carries weight. A committee seat taken because someone needed to fill it adds a leg that holds nothing up. Whether a leg holds depends on values. The National Academies put it this way: 'When clinician and organizational values align, clinicians are more engaged. But when values are not aligned, or become dissonant or confused, conflict, discontent, and disengagement emerge, potentially leading to burnout' (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2019, chapter 'Healthy and Safe Health Care Organizations').
So each match note answers three questions for the person: which of your legs this position would strengthen, whether it fits what you value, and what it asks of your other legs in hours, travel and dates.
Roles beside clinical work
GPs in England who held one or more accountable roles beside their practice work were less likely to intend to leave general practice: an odds ratio of 0.56, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.39 to 0.80 (Dale and colleagues 2015, BMC Family Practice 16:140, 1,192 GPs in the West Midlands). Almost two-thirds of that sample held at least one such role.
In Australia, 33% of early-career GPs undertook other regular medical work (111 of 339). Among those 111, 59% were in medical education, 52% did clinical work outside general practice, and 9% did research (Bentley and colleagues 2022, Journal of Primary Health Care 14(4)). The MABEL survey records how many hours doctors give to non-clinical work (Joyce, Eyre, Wang and Laurence 2015, Australian Health Review 39(5), MABEL wave 5).
The 12th National GP Worklife Survey in England, answered by 1,800 GPs in late 2024, found that over 60% did some work outside general practice, and that variety in the job, the use of their skills and relationships with colleagues were the aspects of the job they were most satisfied with (Walker, Sutton, Bullen and Checkland 2025, University of Manchester). Australian medical leaders interviewed by Bismark and colleagues named the opportunity to influence the future of an organisation as a reason to take on leadership, and described appointments that often came through being 'shoulder tapped', a practice the authors treat as a defect in appointment processes (Bismark and colleagues 2015, BMJ Open 5:e009384, 30 leaders, eight of them women).
A role beside clinical work is not a cure on its own. GPs in South West England described part-time and portfolio work as coping strategies they used up before leaving (Sansom and colleagues 2018, BMJ Open 8:e019849, 41 GPs). A role helps when it gives the GP something they want from work, and does little when it is one more obligation.
Medius found no Australian source that counts how many GPs hold board, committee, clinical lead or advisory roles. Bentley and colleagues record categories of other medical work among early-career GPs, and MABEL measures non-clinical hours, not roles.
Colleagues
Relationships with colleagues sit beside variety and use of skills as the top sources of GP satisfaction in the English survey above. A review of qualitative research on why primary care doctors leave found satisfaction tied to relationships with patients and to supportive relationships within the practice, and departures building up as those relationships wore down (Long and colleagues 2020, BMJ Open 10:e029846).
Family, business and personal development in the evidence
Chris's three legs are apparent in the research on doctors' working lives.
Family. Among Australian early-career GPs, women were less likely than men to hold other regular medical work (odds ratio 0.43), and GPs with dependent children were less likely (odds ratio 0.27) (Bentley and colleagues 2022). The Bismark study, which asked why women are under-represented in medical leadership, recorded capacity, including parenthood, as a barrier to taking on leadership roles (Bismark and colleagues 2015). Of 64 Western Australian GPs aged 45 to 65 who answered a question on what would keep them working beyond their chosen retirement age, 41% named flexible or part-time work and a lighter load (Brett and colleagues 2009, Medical Journal of Australia 191(2), survey of 178 GPs).
Business. Among GPs in rural and remote areas, practice ownership was one of the strongest predictors of staying in their current location, with ownership linked to about 70% longer retention than average. Primary income source, registrar status, hospital work and location restrictions mattered comparably (Russell, McGrail, Humphreys and Wakerman 2012, Australian Journal of Primary Health 18(4)).
Personal development. Education is the most common role Australian early-career GPs hold beside general practice (Bentley and colleagues 2022). More education hours are not associated with lower job satisfaction, while more management and administration hours are (Joyce, Eyre, Wang and Laurence 2015).
What decides whether a position suits a person
Researchers on fit between people and work distinguish two questions. Does the position give the person what they want from work? And can the person do what the position demands? A meta-analysis found that the first, called needs-supplies fit, predicted job satisfaction at a corrected correlation of .61 and intention to quit at -.50. The second, demands-abilities fit, predicted .41 and -.23 (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman and Johnson 2005, Personnel Psychology 58(2)). In a study of 187 managers, needs-supplies fit predicted job and career satisfaction, while demands-abilities fit predicted none of the outcomes tested (Cable and DeRue 2002, Journal of Applied Psychology 87(5)).
Position descriptions list skills and qualifications. The evidence suggests that what a person wants from the work tells you more about whether they will be satisfied and stay.
The same meta-analysis sets the limit. Fit predicts satisfaction and intention to stay. It barely predicts performance: a correlation of .07 for fit between person and organisation.
What people say they value, and what they choose
Asking people to rate their values produces little information. Of the S\&P 500 companies, 85% advertised values on their websites, and those stated values showed no relationship with performance. In a separate sample of 679 US firms with employee survey data from the Great Place to Work Institute, whether employees agreed that 'management's actions match its words' predicted performance (Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales 2015, Journal of Financial Economics 117(1)).
Among biodata items, those describing what a candidate has done, in verifiable and externally checkable terms, were faked less than self-descriptive items (Becker and Colquitt 1992, Personnel Psychology 45(2)). Forced choices, where a person picks the most and least important of a set, resist inflation better than rating scales in personality measures (Cao and Drasgow 2019, Journal of Applied Psychology 104(11)).
The United States O\*NET Work Importance Profiler sorts work needs into six categories: achievement, independence, recognition, relationships, support and working conditions (McCloy and colleagues 1999, National Center for O\*NET Development). O\*NET has since retired its work importance instruments and points users to CareerOneStop's Work Values Matcher. Other studies have measured work values in physicians, but not to test a match against an outcome.
The part of the work that means most
In one academic internal medicine department at Mayo Clinic, physicians who spent less than 20% of their working time, roughly one day a week, on the activity they found most meaningful reported burnout at 53.8%, against 29.9% for those who spent more (Shanafelt and colleagues 2009, Archives of Internal Medicine 169(10), 465 respondents of 556 surveyed). The study asked one question: which activity was most meaningful? Patient care was the most common answer, chosen by 68%.
US physicians who see medicine as a calling report more meaning in life and more commitment to patient care, and income predicts neither (Tak, Curlin and Yoon 2017, Journal of General Internal Medicine 32(7), 1,289 physicians).
What changes with career stage
Across studies, older workers place more weight on intrinsic rewards and less on growth and on extrinsic rewards such as pay, promotion and status (Kooij and colleagues 2011, Journal of Organizational Behavior 32(2), meta-analysis). Among German employees aged 45 to 65, those who valued relationships and other people were more likely to intend to keep working after retirement in every form, including voluntary work (Wöhrmann, Fasbender and Deller 2016, Career Development Quarterly 64). Of 178 Western Australian GPs aged 45 to 65, 63% intended to work to at least 65 and 6% were unsure (Brett and colleagues 2009).
How GPs move between practices
About 10% of Australian GPs change their principal place of practice each year. The most common distance moved was 1 km, driven largely by moves within major cities, and distances rose steeply with rurality (Mazumdar and McRae 2015, Australian Family Physician 44(10), AHPRA data for 2011 and 2013, 21,274 GPs). Among rural GPs in a longitudinal panel, those at their location for under three years were more likely to move to a different location category, as were GPs in towns of under 5,000 residents (McGrail and Humphreys 2015, Medical Journal of Australia 203(2)).
Of 322 early-career GPs who answered, 59% worked at a practice where they had trained as a registrar. Among the 100 working in a regional or rural location, 69% had done so. Practices providing two or more of home visits, nursing home visits and after-hours care were more likely to retain their former registrars, with adjusted odds of 4.29 (Tran and colleagues 2024, Rural and Remote Health 24(3)). On those figures, practices offering a broader range of medicine kept more of their former registrars. The study is cross-sectional and reports an association. US family physicians who provide obstetrics or inpatient care report less burnout than those who do not (Weidner and colleagues 2018, Annals of Family Medicine 16(3), cross-sectional).
The reasons Medius set up Match
Medius set up Medius Match for three reasons.
The first is the evidence above. GPs in England who held roles beyond clinical work were less likely to say they intended to leave, and positions suit people when they give them what they want from their work. When Medius reviewed where non-clinical roles for Australian doctors are published, on 15 October 2026, it found no service that gathers them, and none that records what GPs want from their work. The review covered public job boards, college and government sites and board registers, so a private network or an unpublished service would not have shown up.
The second is that Medius needs the people. Organisations ask Medius for advisory and clinical work it cannot supply from its own team. Medius also bids for tenders and pitches for work that needs GPs and primary care consultants. A register of people, with what they want and what they bring, lets Medius recommend them and build teams.
The third is general practice itself. Seven in ten practice owners reported difficulty finding GPs (RACGP Health of the Nation 2025). Medius matches a practice looking for a GP with a GP looking for a practice, based on the medicine each side wants and how the practice works with its GPs. Medius charges no fee to either side.
So a person registering with Medius Match is asked to name the legs of their own stool, what they want over the next three years, which positions and organisations they would give time to, the part of their work they find most meaningful and how much of their week it takes now, and what a position has to offer them. They are not asked about their experience at any practice. Organisations register positions on the same terms. Each match is written out in sentences, so both sides can see why it was made.
What the evidence does not support
No study Medius found has tested whether matching a doctor to a position on stated work values improves retention or satisfaction. Fit of this kind predicts satisfaction and intention to stay, not performance. Medius Match makes introductions; it does not predict who will succeed in a role.
Medius will count whether the GPs it introduces to practices are still there at 12 and 24 months, and publish the counts. Whether a register of aspirations changes how long GPs stay in medicine is a question nobody has data on yet.