Perceptions about Community Medicine as Career Preference among Medical Students

Background: Studying Community Medicine helps the student to become a good manager, educator and a researcher along with good clinician. In Community Medicine medical students are exposed to primary and secondary healthcare settings and to promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative health services. This helps in serving the needy people with a holistic approach. Objective was to explore the perceptions about Community Medicine as a Subject and of career preference among medical students. Methods: A cross - sectional study was conducted over a period of 1 month. It was conducted on final year part I & part II students of MBBS in Saraswathi Institute of Medical Sciences which is a tertiary teaching hospital in Hapur, Uttar Pradesh by using universal sampling method. Data was collected from the participated students using a self - administered pre - test questionnaire using Likert scale. Results: Total 266 students participated in this study out of which 144 were boys and 122 were girls. The perceptions of students about community medicine were that this branch gives a comprehensive view of medical needs of the community. Curriculum is very vast and needs modification. More research needs to be done in community. Teaching methodology should be modified to make the topics interesting. More girls were interested in taking community medicine as a career. Conclusions: Perceptions regarding the field of community medicine among students showed that it is essential for successful medical practice. But this subject should be made more interesting by improving the teaching modalities and focusing more on practical insight.