Factors considered by undergraduate medical students when selecting specialty of their future careers

Medical students are the source of a country's physicians. Determining how medical students select their areas of specialization is the key to achieve a balanced distribution of doctors among all specialties. The objective is to identify the number of medical students who have decided their pos...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	The Pan African medical journal Vol. 20; no. 102; p. 102
Main Authors:	Alawad, Awad Ali Mohamed Ahmed, Khan, Waleed Shabeer, Abdelrazig, Yousif Mohammed, Elzain, Yamin Ibrahim, Khalil, Hassan Osman, Ahmed, Omer Bakri Elsayed, Adam, Omeralfaroug Ahmed Ibrahim
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Uganda The African Field Epidemiology Network 2015 The Pan African Medical Journal
Subjects:	Career Choice Cross-Sectional Studies Female future career Humans Male medical education medical students Specialization specialty choice Students, Medical - statistics & numerical data Sudan Surveys and Questionnaires Sudan Medical education future career career choice medical students specialty choice Sudan
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Summary:	Medical students are the source of a country's physicians. Determining how medical students select their areas of specialization is the key to achieve a balanced distribution of doctors among all specialties. The objective is to identify the number of medical students who have decided their postgraduate specialty career, their career specialties preference, and factors that may influence their decision to select a particular specialty. A facility based cross-sectional study was conducted in September 2013 at Faculty of Medicine, University of Medical Sciences and Technology, Khartoum, Sudan. A self-administered semi-structured questionnaire comprising demographic data and questions about future specialties preferences and factors influencing those preferences was distributed to 887 male and female students, (from first to fifth academic years) recruited in the study. Response rate was 73% with 647 questionnaires collected, out of 887 eligible medical students. Of the returned questionnaires, 604 were valid. The majority of students (541, 89.6%) have chosen a specialty. Surgery, medicine, paediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology were the most selected specialties. The least selected specialty was anaesthesiology. A significant association was found between gender and specialty choice using Chi-square test (p = 0.00). There was no association between undergraduate level and specialty choice (p = 0.633). The most common reason for choosing a specific specialty was "Personal Interest" (215, 39.7%) followed by being "Helpful to the community" (144, 26.6%). Surgery, medicine, paediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology were the most selected specialties.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	1937-8688 1937-8688
DOI:	10.11604/pamj.2015.20.102.4715