Dear Sir
We read with great interest the article by Ibrahim et al. (Citation2014) regarding factors influencing British medical students’ in their future career intentions. The article highlighted that undergraduate experience and prestige, both significantly influenced British medical students’ future career aspirations.
The Foundation Programme is the first 2-years of UK post-graduate medical training consisting of a training programme with six 4-monthly specialities. Recruitment for the 21 foundation schools is an annual national process in which applicants rank their choice of deanery and are accordingly given their rotations depending on the overall score they obtain on their online application. Recently our group assessed the factors influencing final-year medical students in their choice of their Foundation Programme. All 361 participants from 9 medical schools – Edinburgh, Swansea, Imperial, Peninsula, Leicester, Keele, Sheffield, Liverpool and Glasgow – had applied to the Foundation Programme. Twelve choices (year 1 specialities, year 2 specialities, undergraduate experience, prestige of foundation school, competitiveness, availability of academic post, location, family, partner, friends, finance and recommendations) were ranked in a 5-point Likert scale. Additionally, all respondents stated the single most important factor influencing their choice of foundation school. 67.6% of respondents either strongly agreed or agreed that undergraduate experience was an important factor for foundation school choice. When asked to give the single most important factor when embarking on their choice of foundation training school, 44% chose location with 26% choosing partner, family or friends. Only 3% and 1.6% of final-year medical students stated that undergraduate experience and prestige was the most important factor in the choice of foundation school, respectively.
Our study confirms that under-graduate experience is an important factor for the choice of future career intentions of British medical students. However, it appears that geographical and social factors are also important issues that shape early post-graduate training for British medical students.
Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Reference
- Ibrahim M, Fanshawe A, Patel V, Goswami K, Chilvers G, Ting M, Pilavakis Y, Rao C, Athanasiou T. 2014. What factors influence British medical students’ career intentions? Med Teach 36(12):1064–1072