When and why do medical students drop out of extracurricular longitudinal general practice tracks? A cross-sectional study from two German medical faculties

OBJECTIVES: To explore when and why undergraduate medical students drop out of longitudinal extracurricular general practice (GP) tracks and to describe their future career plans. DESIGN: Cross-sectional online survey and descriptive analysis of routine data. SETTING: GP tracks at two German medical faculties, data collection took place between September 2020 and April 2021. PARTICIPANTS: Of 111 students who had taken part in one of the two GP tracks and dropped out prematurely, 101 were contactable via email. Overall, the response rate was 72.3% with 73 completed questionnaires and 75.3% of the participants were female. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Reasons for leaving the GP track (closed and free-text answers), attitudes towards a career in GP and future career plans. RESULTS: Students left the tracks predominantly during the first 2 years of study. Students most frequently stated that structural reasons such as the distance to the GP teaching practice (74.2%), interest in another medical discipline (66.1%), private reasons (58.1%) and the GP mentor (53.1%) influenced their decision to drop out. However, 87.1% of the students indicated that their exit could not have been prevented by the project administration. CONCLUSIONS: Reasons for dropping out differ between GP tracks and not all reasons are within reach of programme design and staff. Addressable issues include student selection with regard to career plans, support and strengthening of student–mentor relationships, the location of GP practices, and/or travel and accommodation support.