Career Opportunities for Infectious Diseases Subspecialists

Few data are available regarding trends in career opportunities for subspecialty physicians. A review of advertisements for infectious diseases physicians in the 1990, 1993, and 1995 issues of the New England Journal of Medicine revealed a significant decline in the number of openings between 1990 and 1995. In each year the number of private practice advertisements exceeded those in all other categories combined, and this ratio increased over time. Both private practice and academic advertisements commonly listed opportunities or requirements for teaching or research. Expertise in internal medicine, rarely mentioned in advertisements for academic infectious diseases physicians, became the most frequently cited private practice subclassification in 1995. Both private practice and academic settings offered numerous positions related to the care of patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection. The demand for expertise in epidemiology, intravenous therapy, travel medicine, transplantation, or sexually transmitted diseases remained low. Most positions were in heavily populated states or geographic areas.