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. 2007 May;53(5):881-5, 880.

Family medicine as a career option: how students' attitudes changed during medical school

Cheri Bethune  1 , Penelope A Hansen, Diana Deacon, Katrina Hurley, Allison Kirby, Marshall Godwin
Affiliations

Family medicine as a career option: how students' attitudes changed during medical school

Cheri Bethune et al. Can Fam Physician. 2007 May.

Abstract
in English, French

Objective: To track and describe career choice decisions of medical students as they progressed through their undergraduate training.

Design: Quantitative survey of each class at 5 points during their undergraduate experience. Each survey collected qualitative descriptors of students' current career choices.

Setting: Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St John's.

Participants: Undergraduate medical students in each year from 1999 to 2006.

Main outcome measures: Number of students considering family medicine as a career option at 5 different data-collection points throughout the medical school curriculum.

Results: Many students considered family medicine as a career choice early in their undergraduate experience. The number of students considering family medicine dropped significantly during the second year of the curriculum. This trend was consistent across all students surveyed. Although interest in family medicine as a career rebounded later in the curriculum, it never fully recovered.

Conclusion: A large percentage of medical students considered family medicine as a career choice when they entered medical school. The percentage dropped significantly by the end of the second year of training. Attention should be directed toward understanding how the undergraduate medical curriculum in the first 2 years can protect and cultivate interest in family medicine as a career choice.

OBJECTIF: Déterminer comment évoluent les choix de carrière des étudiants en médecine tout au long de leurs études de premier cycle.

TYPE D’ÉTUDE: Enquête quantitative portant sur chaque promotion, à 5 moments au cours des études de premier cycle. À chaque étape de l’enquête, on recueillait des descripteurs qualitatifs des choix des étudiants.

CONTEXTE: Faculté de médecine, Memorial University, St-John’s, Terre-Neuve.

PARTICIPANTS: Étudiants du premier cycle en médecine de chaque promotion entre 1999 et 2006.

PRINCIPAUX PARAMÈTRES MESURÉS: Nombre d’étudiants envisageant la médecine familiale comme choix de carrière à 5 moments différents de leur cours de médecine.

RÉSULTATS: Au début du premier cycle, de nombreux étudiants envisageaient la médecine familiale comme choix de carrière. Une réduction significative de ce nombre s’est produite au cours de la deuxième année du cours. Cette baisse touchait tous les groupes d’étudiants de l’étude. Même si une remontée d’intérêt pour la médecine familiale s’est manifestée plus tard durant le cours, cela ne corrigeait pas complètement la baisse.

CONCLUSION: Au début de leur cours, un fort pourcentage d’étudiants enmédecine envisageaient de faire carrière en médecine familiale. À la fin de la deuxième année, on enregistrait une baisse significative de ce pourcentage. On devrait chercher à comprendre comment le programme d’études des deux premières années du premier cycle pourrait protéger et encourager l’intérêt à l’égard de la médecine familiale comme choix de carrière.

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