A Cross-sectional Study on Undergraduate Medical Student’s Reasons for Joining Medicine and their Future Career Choices

Background : Despite of having the largest number of medical colleges in the world, India is one of the 57 countries with a human resource for health crises having a major shortage of doctors in primary care. By knowing the career preferences of medical students, the policy makers can influence these choices to ensure a fair distribution of doctors in various branches and in rural/urban areas. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. The freshly joined 100 medical entrants in year 2018 were enrolled in this study and asked about their views for joining medicine as career as well as their future dreams. Results: Out of the 100 study subjects, majorities were males (78.0%) and did schooling from private schools (71.0%). The most common reasons/motivations stated by the students to choose medicine as a career was: Desire to serve people (76%). About 95% were interested in some or the other specialization or super-specialization. A larger proportion of female students intend to join the government sector than their male counterparts ( P = 0.003). Non-medical education of the father was significantly related to two findings: the child giving “prestige reason” as the single most important reason for joining MBBS ( P = 0.03) and the child intending to join government sector ( P = 0.001). Conclusion: The medical students enter the noble profession with good intentions of serving the society and joining the public sector and have some basic expectations of job security and good income from their careers. However, majority is naive to the idea of primary care. Key words: Education, medical, undergraduate, medicine, India