How Do Pharmacy Students Make Career Choices in Genomics? Gender and Other Key Determinants of Pharmacy Senior Students' Intentions to Pursue Postgraduate Training in Pharmacogenomics

Abstract

Pharmacists play a pivotal role in pharmacogenomic (PGx) implementation in clinical practice, and their university education is considered a strong driver in holding favorable intentions toward PGx adoption. Using a survey developed based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study aimed to evaluate the determinants of senior pharmacy students' intentions to pursue postgraduate training in PGx and personalized medicine (PM), and with an eye to propose interventions to inform pharmacy students' career choices in the field. Students manifested considerably favorable attitudes toward PGx clinical practice and had acquired a relatively satisfactory level of knowledge. However, they conceded of having a hardly moderate level of confidence in PGx clinical application, and claimed to be moderately satisfied with their PGx training. Interestingly, students alleged to have a relatively limited interest to pursue postgraduate training studies in PGx and PM. Gender was a key and significant demographic moderator of the students' intentions to pursue postgraduate training in PGx and PM. We found that the students' attitudes exerted a strong positive impact on intentions for future PGx training, while self-confidence and training satisfaction had a moderate positive effect, respectively. We propose a set of key interventions that include, inter alia, the update of existing pharmacy curricula and the promotion of interdisciplinary collaborations with other health professionals, to reinforce the pharmacists' role in PM and PGx implementation in clinical practice. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study using the TPB to identify the role of certain factors such as gender, attitudes, self-confidence, and training satisfaction on the final-year pharmacy undergraduate students' intentions to pursue PGx-related postgraduate studies in the future.

Keywords: career choices; gender; personalized medicine; pharmacogenomics; pharmacy; senior pharmacy students.