Working in preventive medicine or not? Flawed perceptions decrease chance of retaining students for the profession

Abstract

Background Recruiting and retaining students in preventive medical (PM) specialties has never been easy; one main challenge is how to select appropriate students with proper motivation. Understanding how students perceive PM practice differently from practicing doctors is necessary to guide students, especially for those for whom PM is only a substitute for medicine as their first study preference, properly during their study and, later, the practice of PM. Methods One thousand three hundred eighty-six PM students in four Vietnamese medical schools and 101 PM doctors filled out a questionnaire about the relevance of 44 characteristics of working in PM. ANOVAs were conducted to define the relationship between students’ interest, year of study, willingness to work in PM, and the degree to which students had realistic perceptions of PM practice, compared to doctors’ perceptions. Results Overall, compared to doctors’ perceptions, students overestimated the importance of most of the investigated PM practice’s characteristics. Moreover, students’ perception related to their preference and willing to pursue a career in PM after graduation. In particular, students for whom PM was their first choice had more realistic perceptions of community practice than those who chose PM as their second choice. And, second-choice students had more realistic perceptions than first-choice students in their final years of study, but expected higher work stress in PM practice. Students who were willing to pursue a career in PM rated the importance of community practice higher than those who were not. We also found that students’ perception changed during training as senior students had more realistic perceptions of clinical aspects and working stress than junior students, even though they overemphasized the importance of the community aspects of PM practice. Conclusions To increase the number of students actually entering the PM field after graduation, the flawed perceptions of students about the real working environment of PM doctors should be addressed through vocation-oriented activities in the curriculum targeted on groups of students who are most likely to have unrealistic perceptions. Our findings also have implications for other less attractive primary health care specialties that experience problems with recruiting and retaining students.

Attracting and retaining physicians in less attractive specialties: the role of continuing medical education

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The determining factors of medical students in considering a specialty as a future career path: A cross-sectional multinational study in the Middle East

“…The amount of workload was significant as it was presented in different literature findings. [ 51 ] Policymakers should consider the motivational aspects of this specialty and modify cultural stereotypes about the specialty as it proved its importance during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic when the critical role of preventive medicine was evident. Low work pressure for a better quality of life and lesser working hours were significant factors that led medical students to prefer a career in preventive medicine.…”

Global best practices in recruiting and retaining healthcare workers in rural areas (literature review)

“…__________________________ блемы в медицинском образовании, низкий социальный статус врачей, высокая рабочая нагрузка, условия труда и низкий уровень заработной платы [5]. Кроме абсолютного дефицита регистрируется и неравномерное распределение медицинского персонала по специальностям и географическим районам [6,7].…”