A National Sample Survey of Medical Students about Their Perception and Evaluation on Medical Study, Career Plan, and Medical Care System: Part 2. Career Plan after Graduating from Medical School

Park, Jung Han; Kim, Kyung Hwan; Jun, Hae Ri

Abstract

A national sample survey of medical students about their perception and evaluation on medical study, career plan, and medical care system was conducted in December 1997 through January 1998. About 10% of all the medical students in 32 medical schools that had students from freshman to senior in November 1997 were systematically sampled for a questionnaire survey. Out of 1,386 students, 1,233(89.0%) had responded and 12 of them were excluded from the analysis because of incomplete response. This report is the second part of the study regarding career plan of students after graduating from medical school. Criteria of medical students for choosing specialty of medicine are professional reward and personal interest. Among the respondents, 92.2% plan to choose clinical medicine, 2.5% basic medical sciences, and 4.8% special areas of medicine such as health administration, medical engineering, forensic medicine, medical education, and health economics. If it is guaranteed that they will be a professor after training, 8.8% of them want to study special areas of medicine, and 7.3% basic medical sciences. The students who had admitted to a medical school after obtaining bachelor's degree were more prone to choose clinical medicine than other students. The most common reason for not choosing basic medical sciences was lower income than clinician. Among the students who want to be a clinician, 92.2% want to be a specialist and the preferred specialties were internal medicine 36.0%, orthopedics 9.0%, general surgery 7.7%, psychiatry 7.5%, and pediatrics 5.7%. Comparing with the findings of 1983 study, the proportions of students who want to major internal medicine and minor subjects were markedly increased and that of general surgery increased slightly while that of pediatrics was decreased. The places of work that the students prefer in the future were university hospital 43.2% (10% point increase from the finding in 1983), general hospital 37.1% and private practice 9.4% (10% point decrease from the finding in 1983). It was noticeable that some of the students want to be a medical missionary and health administrator. The students prefer their university hospital most for post-graduate training and the reason is only because it is their alma mater. One can anticipate from these findings that it will be very difficult to get basic medical scientists and primary physicians in the future.