A retrospective survey of medical specialty choice and job satisfaction in a sample of King's graduates who qualified between 1985/86 and 1989/90

Abstract

A survey of 478 graduates, who qualified from King's between 1985/86 and 1989/90, sought information on their current specialties and job satisfaction; 78% responded (n =371). Nearly 40% were general practitioners, with medicine, surgery and anaesthetics the most common hospital specialties. The women were more likely than the men to be in general practice or radiology and to be practising part-time; the men were more likely to be surgeons. It was found that 2.2% had left medicine and 21.2% still practising regretted their career choice. The main reason for dissatisfaction was hours worked.The effect on personal lives was cited second by the GPs and women compared to poor pay by the hospital doctors. Pay was the male doctors' top concern more than hours worked.Working conditions and treatment by superiors and management were also raised. These results suggest that the measures proposed in 1991 to improve working conditions in hospital medicine had not been effective in reducing dissatisfaction by the time this survey was undertaken 2 years later.