High-end physician migration from India

Graduates from higher quality institutions account for a disproportionately large share of emigrating physicians. Even within high-end institutions, such as AIIMS, better physicians are more likely to emigrate. Interventions should focus on the highly trained individuals in the top institutions that contribute disproportionately to the loss of human resources for health. Our findings suggest that affirmative-action programmes may have an unintended benefit in that they may help retain a subset of such personnel.