The mother-of-three spent years working as a full-time general practitioner, putting in up to 60 hours a week, being on-call and away from her young family many weekends.

But 13 years ago the 44-year-old said she had little choice but to gradually start cutting back her practice hours because her family was suffering.

Dr Lynch now works part-time in a practice at Charlestown and job shares with two male GPs the full-time role of clinical director for the GP Access After Hours service.

She said there was a widespread and long-term trend of GPs changing the way they worked, with many male and female doctors opting for more flexible hours and part-time work in an effort to give priority to their families and lifestyle.

As a result, many areas in the Hunter have continued to record long-term falls in the number of full-time doctors serving the community.

Workforce statistics for the Hunter urban division show that there are 427 GPs working in the region, but there are only 290 full-time-equivalent doctors.

GPs have to work 40 hours a week to be considered full-time.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data shows that the average GP working hours fell from 45.4 hours a week in 1995 to 39.9 hours in 2005.

Dr Lynch said moving out of full-time practice meant a "significant" drop in income, but for many doctors there was little choice.

She said from her experience the only way to make the shift was to change surgeries and start again.

"There were issues and in the end I had to change practices and establish a new patient base that knew in the beginning that I would only be available for some of the time," she said.

"In some ways I now share patients, they may see two doctors in the same practice rather than one . . . it offers two opinions which can be very useful."

Dr Lynch said the Hunter's GP workforce shortage meant the demand for services and time was "endless".

"There is no doubt that people value the idea of the full-time family doctor, but for many of us that is not possible anymore," she said.