Foreign medical graduates in New Zealand 1973-79: a test of the 'exacerbation hypothesis'.

In most developed countries the immigration of foreign trained doctors has been encouraged as a stopgap measure to fill domestic medical manpower requirements. However, such policies have resulted in considerable debate particularly over whether the influx of foreign doctors has exacerbated or reduced both the geographic and specialty maldistribution of medical resources in the host countries. Data for New Zealand between 1973 and 79 reveals little support for the 'exacerbation hypothesis'. Instead, the impact of medical immigration seems to have been largely redistributive, with foreign trained doctors increasingly entering primary care and locating in areas avoided by indigenous medical graduates. However, the results suggest that such trends are conditional upon the overall supply of doctors and therefore future research should concentrate upon the nature and magnitude of the constraints exerted by this contextual effect.