Alternate career choices of medical students: their relationship to choice of specialty

Abstract

Background and methods: To help identify additional information regarding why some individuals are more likely to enter certain medical specialties, we undertook a study to evaluate the relationship between a senior medical student's self-reported alternate career choice (ie, if he or she had not entered medicine), and that student's subsequent choice of a medical specialty.

Results: Students entering the specialties of pediatrics, family practice, obstetrics and gynecology, and emergency medicine were likely to have chosen alternate careers in the teaching, health care, humanities, arts, and nonprofessional areas. In contrast, students entering the specialties of anesthesiology, radiology, internal medicine, and surgery (general surgery or the surgical subspecialties) were more likely to have chosen alternate careers in engineering, research, science, business, law, and architecture.

Conclusions: The alternate career choices of medical students may be related to their subsequent choice of medical specialty.