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A survey of factors influencing career preference in new-entrant and exiting medical students from four UK medical schools

BACKGROUND: Workforce planning is a central issue for service provision and has consequences for medical education. Much work has been examined the career intentions, career preferences and career destinations of UK medical graduates but there is little published about medical students career intent...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Cleland, Jennifer A, Johnston, Peter W, Anthony, Micheal, Khan, Nadir, Scott, Neil W
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4131477/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25056270
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-14-151
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author Cleland, Jennifer A
Johnston, Peter W
Anthony, Micheal
Khan, Nadir
Scott, Neil W
author_facet Cleland, Jennifer A
Johnston, Peter W
Anthony, Micheal
Khan, Nadir
Scott, Neil W
author_sort Cleland, Jennifer A
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Workforce planning is a central issue for service provision and has consequences for medical education. Much work has been examined the career intentions, career preferences and career destinations of UK medical graduates but there is little published about medical students career intentions. How soon do medical students formulate careers intentions? How much do these intentions and preferences change during medical school? If they do change, what are the determining factors? Our aim was to compare medical students’ career preferences upon entry into and exit from undergraduate medical degree programmes. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. Two cohorts [2009–10, 2010–11] of first and final year medical students at the four Scottish graduating medical schools took part in career preference questionnaire surveys. Questions were asked about demographic factors, career preferences and influencing factors. RESULTS: The response rate was 80.9% [2682/3285]. Significant differences were found across the four schools, most obviously in terms of student origin [Scotland, rest of UK or overseas], age group, and specialty preferences in Year 1 and Year 5. Year 1 and Year 5 students’ specialty preferences also differed within each school and, while there were some common patterns, each medical school had a different profile of students’ career preferences on exit. When the analysis was adjusted for demographic and job-related preferences, specialty preferences differed by gender, and wish for work-life balance and intellectual satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first multi-centre study exploring students’ career preferences and preference influences upon entry into and exit from undergraduate medical degree programmes. We found various factors influenced career preference, confirming prior findings. What this study adds is that, while acknowledging student intake differs by medical school, medical school itself seems to influence career preference. Comparisons across medical school populations must therefore control for differences in input [the students] as well as context and process [the medical school] when looking at output [e.g., performance]. A robust, longitudinal study is required to explore how medical students’ career preferences change as they progress through medical school and training to understand the influence of the learning environment on training choice and outcomes.
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spelling pubmed-41314772014-08-15 A survey of factors influencing career preference in new-entrant and exiting medical students from four UK medical schools Cleland, Jennifer A Johnston, Peter W Anthony, Micheal Khan, Nadir Scott, Neil W BMC Med Educ Research Article BACKGROUND: Workforce planning is a central issue for service provision and has consequences for medical education. Much work has been examined the career intentions, career preferences and career destinations of UK medical graduates but there is little published about medical students career intentions. How soon do medical students formulate careers intentions? How much do these intentions and preferences change during medical school? If they do change, what are the determining factors? Our aim was to compare medical students’ career preferences upon entry into and exit from undergraduate medical degree programmes. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. Two cohorts [2009–10, 2010–11] of first and final year medical students at the four Scottish graduating medical schools took part in career preference questionnaire surveys. Questions were asked about demographic factors, career preferences and influencing factors. RESULTS: The response rate was 80.9% [2682/3285]. Significant differences were found across the four schools, most obviously in terms of student origin [Scotland, rest of UK or overseas], age group, and specialty preferences in Year 1 and Year 5. Year 1 and Year 5 students’ specialty preferences also differed within each school and, while there were some common patterns, each medical school had a different profile of students’ career preferences on exit. When the analysis was adjusted for demographic and job-related preferences, specialty preferences differed by gender, and wish for work-life balance and intellectual satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first multi-centre study exploring students’ career preferences and preference influences upon entry into and exit from undergraduate medical degree programmes. We found various factors influenced career preference, confirming prior findings. What this study adds is that, while acknowledging student intake differs by medical school, medical school itself seems to influence career preference. Comparisons across medical school populations must therefore control for differences in input [the students] as well as context and process [the medical school] when looking at output [e.g., performance]. A robust, longitudinal study is required to explore how medical students’ career preferences change as they progress through medical school and training to understand the influence of the learning environment on training choice and outcomes. BioMed Central 2014-07-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4131477/ /pubmed/25056270 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-14-151 Text en Copyright © 2014 Cleland et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Cleland, Jennifer A
Johnston, Peter W
Anthony, Micheal
Khan, Nadir
Scott, Neil W
A survey of factors influencing career preference in new-entrant and exiting medical students from four UK medical schools
title A survey of factors influencing career preference in new-entrant and exiting medical students from four UK medical schools
title_full A survey of factors influencing career preference in new-entrant and exiting medical students from four UK medical schools
title_fullStr A survey of factors influencing career preference in new-entrant and exiting medical students from four UK medical schools
title_full_unstemmed A survey of factors influencing career preference in new-entrant and exiting medical students from four UK medical schools
title_short A survey of factors influencing career preference in new-entrant and exiting medical students from four UK medical schools
title_sort survey of factors influencing career preference in new-entrant and exiting medical students from four uk medical schools
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4131477/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25056270
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-14-151
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