The influence of early clinical experiences on career preference of male and female medical students

Figures & data

Table

Practice points

The first clinical experience seems to affect internship preference of male but not of female senior medical students. For female senior medical students, lifestyle controllability may be a more important factor than the first clinical experience for internship preference.

Table 1.  Association between initial clerkship assignment and general choice of internship in sixth year

Initial third year clerkship assignment
	Internal medicine N = 370 (%)	General surgery N = 115 (%)	χ^2	p-Value
Internship with medical nature (sixth year)	264 (71)	75 (65)	1.57	0.210
Internship with surgical nature (sixth year)	106 (29)	40 (35)
Male students	N = 115	N = 41
Internship with medical nature (sixth year)	72 (63)	17 (41)	5.515	0.019
Internship with surgical nature (sixth year)	43 (37)	24 (59)
Female students	N = 255	N = 74
Internship with medical nature (sixth year)	192 (75)	58 (78)	0.299	0.584
Internship with surgical nature (sixth year)	63 (25)	16 (22)

Surgical internships included general, plastic and cardiothoracic surgery, gynecology and obstetrics, neurosurgery, orthopedics, and urology. Medical internships were general internal medicine, gastro-enterology, rheumatology, hemato-oncology, pulmonary disease and tuberculosis, cardiology, geriatrics, infectiology, intensive care, pediatrics, (pediatric) rehabilitation, neurology, and psychiatry.

Table 2.  Logistic regression analysis of the interaction between gender and initial clerkship assignment in predicting sixth year internship preference

	OR	95% confidence interval	p-Value
Gender	0.55	0.34–0.88	0.013
First clerkship	1.19	0.64–2.22	0.585
Gender * First clerkship	0.36	0.14–0.93	0.034

Females and Internal Medicine served as reference groups for gender and first clerkship (indicator contrast) and sixth-year internship preference coded as surgical (0) or medical (1).