Assessment of specialization preference among undergraduate medical students and its influencing factors

Background: Understanding the future career interests of medical graduates is important, as they are the future workforce of the healthcare profession. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the career choices and the factors that influence undergraduate medical students to choose a particular medical specialty. Materials and methods: A cross sectional observational study was conducted among ‘300’ undergraduate medical students of Sardar Patel Medical College, Bikaner, Rajasthan between January to March 2014. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data and the association between different variables was tested using Chi-square test. Results: Out of total ‘300’ respondents, 84% (n=252) considered post-graduation very important for future career and majority of them (99%) wanted to pursue the same in clinical subject. The most preferred specialty expressed by male students was Medicine, followed by Surgery and Orthopedic, while the female students were more interested in Radiology, Paediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology. Little interest was shown in other specialities. Personal interest was found to be the most common factor that influenced the choice of specialization. Conclusion: A variety of factors appeared to inspire medical graduates to opt for a particular specialty. All the substantial factors that influence the medical graduates’ decision should be equally justified and addressed, so that the quantitative and qualitative inequality of specialists can be nullified.