Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2007 Jun 1:7:15.
doi: 10.1186/1472-6920-7-15.

General Practice as a career choice among undergraduate medical students in Greece

Anargiros Mariolis  1 , Constantinos Mihas, Alevizos Alevizos, Vasilis Gizlis, Theodoros Mariolis, Konstantinos Marayiannis, Yiannis Tountas, Christodoulos Stefanadis, Anastas Philalithis, George Creatsas
Affiliations

General Practice as a career choice among undergraduate medical students in Greece

Anargiros Mariolis et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: Although General Practice (GP) was recognized as a medical specialty in Greece in 1986, the number of GPs is insufficient to cover needs and only few medical graduates choose GP as a career option. In the present study we investigated the profile of medical students in terms of their decisions regarding specialization and the possible association of career choices different from GP with the status of undergraduate training regarding GP.

Methods: The sample consisted of final year students in the Medical School of the University of Athens, Greece. Students filled in a self-reported questionnaire focusing on medical specialization, and GP in particular.

Results: Response rate was 82.5% with 1021 questionnaires collected, out of 1237 eligible medical students. Only 44 out of the 1021 (4.3%) respondents stated that GP is -or could be- among their choices for specialty. The most popular medical specialty was General Surgery (10.9%), followed by Cardiology (9.6%), Endocrinology (8.7%) and Obstetrics-Gynaecology (8.3%). The most common criterion for choosing GP was the guaranteed employment on completion of the residency (54.6%) while a 56.6% of total respondents were positive to the introduction of GP/FM as a curriculum course during University studies.

Conclusion: Despite the great needs, GP specialty is currently not a career option among undergraduate students of the greater Medical University in Greece and is still held in low esteem. A university department responsible for undergraduate teaching, promotion and research in GP (where not available) is essential; the status of undergraduate training in general practice/family medicine seems to be one of the most important factors that influence physician career choices regarding primary care specialties.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Greek Ministry of Health [homepage on the Internet] Health Map [updated 2005] http://www.mohaw.gr/gr/ygeia/index_html
    1. Merkouris M. Evaluation of Health Systems. Primary Health Care. 1987;2,1:23–27. (In Greek)
    1. Faculty of Medicine; University of Crete Study Guide and Faculty Organisation, 1985 Heraklion (Greece) University of Crete. 1985. (In Greek)
    1. Philalithis A. Pre-graduate medical education in PHC at the Department of Social/Family Medicine, University of Crete Proceedings of the national conference on Primary Health Care; Ioannina, Greece. 2001. (In Greek)
    1. Belos G, Lionis C, Fioretos M, Vlachonicolis J, Philalithis A. Clinical undergraduate training and assessment in primary health care: experiences gained from Crete, Greece. BMC Med Educ. 5:13. doi: 10.1186/1472-6920-5-13. 2005 May 9. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources