Attitudes and Perceptions of Medical Students toward Neurosurgery as a Career, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Introduction: Medical students usually show a preference toward a specific specialty. They could have the preference before entering the medical school but their preference could change. There has been a decline in surgical specialty as a career choice by medical students more recently. The objective of the study is to evaluate the attitude and perception of medical students toward neurosurgery. Methods and Materials: This is a cross-sectional study that was conducted in King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for health sciences in RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA on 218 medical students from the fifth and sixth year, using a validated questionnaire comprising of 15 questions with a scoring based on Linkert ranking scale (1, disagree; 2, agree somewhat; 3, agree moderately; 4, agree Strongly).  Results: The distribution response was 85%, only 186 (102 males vs. 84 females) medical students completed the questionnaire. The data shows that the majority of students think that their neurosurgery teaching is inadequate, neurosurgical history is difficult to obtain, neurosurgical signs are difficult to elicit and that most of them 86% aren’t considering neurosurgery as a future career because it can impede family life. Conclusion: This study point out some areas that can be targeted and improved to enhance the student’s perception of neurosurgery as a specialty and to facilitate learning of neurosurgery knowledge during medical school. Also, a study on a larger sample might be required to generalize the results.