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This study seeks to investigate doctors' desire to change the hospital where they work to sustain higher quality care.

Self‐administered questionnaires were sent to doctors in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Data were analyzed using univariate and logistic regression analysis and recursive partitioning.

Factors related to doctors' desire to change hospitals, according to logistic regression, were interaction between working hours and satisfaction with the hospital, evaluation, local government hospitals versus private ones, small vs large hospitals, ophthalmology versus internal medicine, desire to continue working as a hospital doctor and age. Additionally, working hours were also found to be related, based on recursive partitioning.

The response rate was low and sampling bias was observed – therefore results need careful interpretation. Also, because this was a cross‐sectional study, causal relationships could not be identified. Desire to change hospitals, but not actual behavior, was measured.

Efforts to prevent doctors from changing hospitals should include considering job satisfaction and workload, doctor evaluation methods, support for career progression and organizational management.

As the hospital doctor shortage in rural areas becomes more serious, exploring doctors' desire to leave their current hospital is meaningful for Japanese hospital managers and hospitals worldwide aiming to provide sustainable and higher quality care.