Attitudes of medical students towards their career — perspective from Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa

Objective: To investigate motivations of students in choosing the medical profession and their attitude towards their future profession. Methods: The cross-sectional study was performed at Khyber Medial College, Peshawar, Pakistan, from April 15 to 30 2011, comprising 200 medical students from all five years of the MBBS course. Stratified random sampling was used and 20 male and 20 female students from each year answered a 15-item questionnaire. Total positive score was calculated. SPSS 16 was used for statistical analysis. Results: Leaving out the lone incomplete questionnaire, the response rate was 99.5%. Of them 132 (66%) students said they chose the medical profession of their own accord; 129 (64.8%) had a doctor in their immediate family. Mostly, students wanted to do specialization in a particular field (n=185; 93%), but the majority (n=103; 56%) had not selected a specific field at the time of the survey. Besides, 140 (70%) students wanted to choose either medicine or surgery, while only 9 (4.5%) students were interested in Public Health. Conclusion: Though the subjects had chosen the medical profession of their own free will, some had regrets. Students were aware of the importance of specialisation in a particular field, but seemed to need career counselling to help them in their decision-making.