Who and Where are the University of São Paulo Medical School Graduates?

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:To evaluate the impact of a complex-care-based medical school in the context of the Brazilian health care system on students' career choices.METHODS:This was a retrospective cross-sectional study based on medical regulatory organization records. It included records for 7,419 physicians who graduated from FMUSP. Geographic data were analyzed using Kernel maps, and the statistical analysis was performed with SPSS® version 24.0. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered significant.RESULTS:Of the 7,419 physicians, 68.6% (95% CI 67.5-69.7) were male, and 20.7% (95% CI 19.8%-21.7%) had no medical specialty, compared to 46.4% nationwide. Internal medicine and surgery-based specialties were more popular, accounting for 39.4% (95% CI 38.3%-40.5%) and 16.8% (95% CI 15.5%-17.6%) of our study group, compared to the Brazilian averages of 25.9% and 13.5%. Our graduates also had a higher probability of staying in São Paulo City, especially when born outside the city.CONCLUSION:We believe that FMUSP remains an interesting model for studying the impact of a highly specialized center on the education and career choices of medical students.

Quem são e onde estão os médicos formados pela residência do Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade de São Paulo?

“…In the topic of feminization, it was found that there are differences between genders when comparing the groups of FMUSP and non-FMUSP alumni in the residency. The percentage of women in the group of FMUSP alumni (40.7%) was higher than the frequency of 31.4% found in the study by Gameiro et al 13 , which assessed the demographics of doctors trained by this institution between the years 1940 and 2013. The period covered in the present study, 1999 to 2019, may help explaining this difference.…”

“…It was the most popular program among these residents, which contradicts the national trend, in which General Surgery is in 3rd place among the most frequent specialties in Brazil 7 . This may be due to FMUSP's strong history of training surgeons, as pointed out in previous studies, which reported that, over 74 years, the most frequent specialty of FMUSP graduates was Surgery, with a total of 826 surgeons in the period evaluated (more than 10% of all graduates who specialize) 13 .…”

“…This increase in the percentage of doctors living in the capital shows the tendency for doctors to stay in the same city or region where they finish their medical residency, as already evidenced in other studies 22,23 . Other reasons for doctors to stay in the same city where they completed their MR are greater opportunities for employment and income, more technological resources, greater number of hospitals and areas of activity, possibility of maintaining the bond with the university of origin, among others 9,13,23 .…”

“…In addition to individual characteristics and trajectories, other determinant factors are the undergraduate medical training, the offer of vacancies, the profile of institutions that support MR programs and the job market and professional perspectives 12 . The profile of the doctors in MR can be classified by gender, for example, 97.7% of specialists in Urology in Brazil are men 7 ; by undergraduate institution, for example, FMUSP alumni tend to attend more surgical specialties when compared to alumni from other medical schools in the country 13 ; and by other reasons related to professional choice 14 .…”

“…It also aims to compare aspects of MR graduates who came from the Medical School of the University of São Paulo (FMUSP) and those who came from other medical schools. This article is part of the studies Medical Demography in Brazil 7 and ELMU -Longitudinal Study of Doctors Graduated from FMUSP 13 .…”