Specialty Preference and the Factors Affecting it among the Junior Doctors of Wah Medical College.

摘要

OBJECTIVE: To identify the specialty preferences of junior doctors and understand the factors that affect the choice of specialty. STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive cross sectional study PLACE AND DURATION: The study was conducted inWah Medical College from 10th to 20th July 2018 METHODOLOGY: Convenience sampling was used to include junior doctors’ i.e. Demonstrators, house officers (HO) and post graduate students (PG). A 17 items questionnaire with Likert based close ended questions was developed. The participants were required to choose a specialty from the given list and to select their response regarding the factors influencing their choice that include aptitude, better understanding of the subject, respect for particular specialty in family, personal satisfaction, role model, higher income, better job opportunities and lifestyle. RESULTS: Out of 118 doctors, 72.9% were females and 27.1% were males. Among all the participants, 19.5% chose Pediatrics as their specialty, followed by medicine (17.8%) and obstetrics and gynecology (16.1%). Among the females, 16.1% preferred obstetrics and gynecology as a field of choice whereas 28% males preferred medicine (p value 0.001). There was also statistically significant difference between preclinical and clinical group of doctors when choosing a specialty as preclinical doctors preferred basic sciences (28%) and clinical group chose pediatrics (22.5%) (p value 0.001 ). Among the total participants, 87% preferred their specialty because of aptitude and personal satisfaction while 82% of junior doctors choose their specialty due to better understanding of the subject. CONCLUSION: Medicine, paediatrics and gynaecology are main specialties chosen by junior doctors while other subspecialties were not preferred. The results showed that the factors influencing the choice of specialty were aptitude, personal satisfaction and better subject understanding.