Factors affecting the choice of health specialty by medical graduates

Dear Sir

A recent article about research on the career planning of medical students, “What Factors Influence the British medical students' career intentions” by Ibrahim et al. (2014), has drawn our attention.

Previous studies have identified factors affecting medical students’ career planning, such as the experiences of medical students during their education period, the branches of faculty in which members are seen as role models, research interests, gender, prestige, financial benefits, workload, clinical competence and ability, socioeconomic status, organizational planning of the faculty and age (Takeda et al. 2013).

Ibrahim et al. reported that males do not show more interest in surgical specialities than females. In England, gender distribution may differ among physicians practicing in the field after 10 years. However, today it is known that it is not only among male staff that interest in surgical branches is declining. In particular, the increasing sanctions day by day applied to malpractice of doctors and the attitudes of insurance companies appear to be important factors in career choice. While branches such as gynecology and obstetrics, plastic and reconstructive surgery and orthopedics have begun to be less favored, branches such as neurology, dermatology, radiology and basic medical sciences are becoming more preferred.

While agreeing with the results in the article of Ibraham et al., we think that the opinions of the class mates of the students as well as students’ own thoughts would give better results. In our opinion, medical students are not adequately assessed or mentored according to their capabilities in career planning within the current medical training programs, meaning that the thoughts of class mates observing each other more closer may be useful.

Today, medical students have to think about more variables while career planning after graduation than in the past. Besides factors such as interests, abilities, financial gain and age, young doctors tend to prefer specialities in which they will encounter lesser legal issues.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest.