Background: Studies have shown that student perceptions of the expectations of external community such as patients, doctors, society, family and friends have a role in driving them to achieve the necessary attributes in early student years. (Stubbing et al., 2019).
Aim of study: To analyse the reasons why freshers chose the medical profession and their perception of societal expectations of physician attributes. Compare freshers’ perceptions with the current scenario of medical education and the public trust in medical professionals. This study also assesses how all these have changed with time.
Summary of Work: From the year 2009 to 2021, an open-ended questionnaire survey was administered, for 13 cohorts of freshers (594 participants) joining the medical college in UAE. Consent was obtained from participants. Approval from the Research and Ethics committee was obtained.
Thematic analysis of the data and word cloud analyses were done using SurveyMonkey. They are compared with the current scenario of public trust in medical professionals.
Summary of Results: The reasons for choosing this profession were classified into 5 major themes. Desirable attributes most commonly appearing five terms for each cohort were ranked. Factors such as compassion, caring, confidentiality, good listener, responsible, knowledgeable, altruistic remained in the top five consistently and did not show variation among the cohorts between 2009 and 2021. Validity of the wordcloud available on SurveymonkeyTM was low and needed human correction of spellings and formats to ensure data validity.
Discussion And Conclusion: The major themes for reasons on choosing the profession have remained the same over thirteen years and are service-oriented commitment for patient care, scholarly achievement and self-actualization. A smaller percentage chose personal gains (social status and financial gains).
Personal attributes which emerged as society's expectations of physicians were patience, compassion, empathy and communication skills. But over the years, there is an increasing frequency of more tangible virtues like integrity and honesty. This could be attributed to the increased reliance on electronic media due to the Covid pandemic Curriculum reforms must focus more on ethics and honesty.
A study of freshers’ perceptions of societal expectations are highly valid. These perceptions are important due to the positive catalytic effect which drives students to meet those expectations and has a positive effect on doctor patient relationship.