Analysis of Opinions Regarding Medical Specialty Selection Examination and Career Choices of 5th and 6th Grade Medical Students from Düzce University, Turkey

Objective: In this study, it was aimed that analyzing career choices of Students of Medical Faculty and their opinions regarding Medical Specialty Selection Examination. Methods: At 2012-2013 education terms, 101 medical students from Duzce University participated in this cross sectional study. 58 (57,4%) of them were at 5 th grade and 43 (42,6%) of the participants were at 6 th grade. Career Choices, affecting factors, training course satisfaction, some demographic factors (age, gender, grade, type of high school graduated from), thoughts regarding to Medical Specialty Selection Exam and foreign language examination scores were questioned via the questionnaire based survey. Results: 41(40.6%) of the 101 participants who filled up the questionnaire based survey were male, 60(59.4%) of them were female. Their mean age was 23.6±0.9 years and most of them (n=50; 49.5%) had graduated from Anatolian High Schools. It is reported that top 5 training course according to student satisfaction as follows Emergency Medicine (n=16; 15,8%), Dermatology (n=16; 15.8%), Cardiology (n=11; 10.9%), Brain Surgery (n=9; 8.9%) and Pediatrics (n=7; 6.9%) (p<0.0001). It is also reported that top 5 areas according to the choices on Medical Specialty Selection Examination are as follows; Otolaryngology (n=11; 10.9%), Dermatology (n=9; 8.9%), Internal Medicine (n=8; %7.9), Plastic Surgery (n=8; 7.9%) and Psychiatry (n=8; 7.9%) (p<0.0001). If we compare male and female students, male students prefer sports medicine (n=5; 12.2%), whereas female students prefer Otolaryngology (n=9; 15.0%) in the first rank of their choices. Conclusion: It is reported that regarding to Medical Specialty Selection Examination choices; in addition to gender differences, “impacts on family and private life and properties of academic career” are also the most affecting factors.