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Students’ intentions to practice primary care are associated with their motives to become doctors: a longitudinal study

BACKGROUND: Medical schools can contribute to the insufficient primary care physician workforce by influencing students’ career preferences. Primary care career choice evolves between matriculation and graduation and is influenced by several individual and contextual factors. This study explored the...

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Autores principales: Pfarrwaller, Eva, Voirol, Lionel, Piumatti, Giovanni, Karemera, Mucyo, Sommer, Johanna, Gerbase, Margaret W., Guerrier, Stéphane, Baroffio, Anne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8750802/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35016672
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-03091-y
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author Pfarrwaller, Eva
Voirol, Lionel
Piumatti, Giovanni
Karemera, Mucyo
Sommer, Johanna
Gerbase, Margaret W.
Guerrier, Stéphane
Baroffio, Anne
author_facet Pfarrwaller, Eva
Voirol, Lionel
Piumatti, Giovanni
Karemera, Mucyo
Sommer, Johanna
Gerbase, Margaret W.
Guerrier, Stéphane
Baroffio, Anne
author_sort Pfarrwaller, Eva
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Medical schools can contribute to the insufficient primary care physician workforce by influencing students’ career preferences. Primary care career choice evolves between matriculation and graduation and is influenced by several individual and contextual factors. This study explored the longitudinal dynamics of primary care career intentions and the association of students’ motives for becoming doctors with these intentions in a cohort of undergraduate medical students followed over a four-year period. METHODS: The sample consisted of medical students from two classes recruited into a cohort study during their first academic year, and who completed a yearly survey over a four-year period from their third (end of pre-clinical curriculum) to their sixth (before graduation) academic year. Main outcome measures were students’ motives for becoming doctors (ten motives rated on a 6-point scale) and career intentions (categorized into primary care, non-primary care, and undecided). Population-level flows of career intentions were investigated descriptively. Changes in the rating of motives over time were analyzed using Wilcoxon tests. Two generalized linear mixed models were used to estimate which motives were associated with primary care career intentions. RESULTS: The sample included 217 students (60% females). Career intentions mainly evolved during clinical training, with smaller changes at the end of pre-clinical training. The proportion of students intending to practice primary care increased over time from 12.8% (year 3) to 24% (year 6). Caring for patients was the most highly rated motive for becoming a doctor. The importance of the motives cure diseases, saving lives, and vocation decreased over time. Primary care career intentions were positively associated with the motives altruism and private practice, and negatively associated with the motives prestige, academic interest and cure diseases. CONCLUSION: Our study indicates that career intentions are not fixed and change mainly during clinical training, supporting the influence of clinical experiences on career-related choices. The impact of students’ motives on primary care career choice suggests strategies to increase the attractivity of this career, such as reinforcing students’ altruistic values and increasing the academic recognition of primary care. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-021-03091-y.
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spelling pubmed-87508022022-01-11 Students’ intentions to practice primary care are associated with their motives to become doctors: a longitudinal study Pfarrwaller, Eva Voirol, Lionel Piumatti, Giovanni Karemera, Mucyo Sommer, Johanna Gerbase, Margaret W. Guerrier, Stéphane Baroffio, Anne BMC Med Educ Research BACKGROUND: Medical schools can contribute to the insufficient primary care physician workforce by influencing students’ career preferences. Primary care career choice evolves between matriculation and graduation and is influenced by several individual and contextual factors. This study explored the longitudinal dynamics of primary care career intentions and the association of students’ motives for becoming doctors with these intentions in a cohort of undergraduate medical students followed over a four-year period. METHODS: The sample consisted of medical students from two classes recruited into a cohort study during their first academic year, and who completed a yearly survey over a four-year period from their third (end of pre-clinical curriculum) to their sixth (before graduation) academic year. Main outcome measures were students’ motives for becoming doctors (ten motives rated on a 6-point scale) and career intentions (categorized into primary care, non-primary care, and undecided). Population-level flows of career intentions were investigated descriptively. Changes in the rating of motives over time were analyzed using Wilcoxon tests. Two generalized linear mixed models were used to estimate which motives were associated with primary care career intentions. RESULTS: The sample included 217 students (60% females). Career intentions mainly evolved during clinical training, with smaller changes at the end of pre-clinical training. The proportion of students intending to practice primary care increased over time from 12.8% (year 3) to 24% (year 6). Caring for patients was the most highly rated motive for becoming a doctor. The importance of the motives cure diseases, saving lives, and vocation decreased over time. Primary care career intentions were positively associated with the motives altruism and private practice, and negatively associated with the motives prestige, academic interest and cure diseases. CONCLUSION: Our study indicates that career intentions are not fixed and change mainly during clinical training, supporting the influence of clinical experiences on career-related choices. The impact of students’ motives on primary care career choice suggests strategies to increase the attractivity of this career, such as reinforcing students’ altruistic values and increasing the academic recognition of primary care. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-021-03091-y. BioMed Central 2022-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8750802/ /pubmed/35016672 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-03091-y Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Pfarrwaller, Eva
Voirol, Lionel
Piumatti, Giovanni
Karemera, Mucyo
Sommer, Johanna
Gerbase, Margaret W.
Guerrier, Stéphane
Baroffio, Anne
Students’ intentions to practice primary care are associated with their motives to become doctors: a longitudinal study
title Students’ intentions to practice primary care are associated with their motives to become doctors: a longitudinal study
title_full Students’ intentions to practice primary care are associated with their motives to become doctors: a longitudinal study
title_fullStr Students’ intentions to practice primary care are associated with their motives to become doctors: a longitudinal study
title_full_unstemmed Students’ intentions to practice primary care are associated with their motives to become doctors: a longitudinal study
title_short Students’ intentions to practice primary care are associated with their motives to become doctors: a longitudinal study
title_sort students’ intentions to practice primary care are associated with their motives to become doctors: a longitudinal study
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8750802/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35016672
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-03091-y
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