[The choice of profession of medical doctors graduating from Leiden University]

To determine what postgraduate courses Leiden medical students had completed after obtaining the degree in medicine.

Descriptive.

The BIG-register [Dutch register of professionals in individual healthcare] was examined to determine how students who had passed their final examinations at Leiden University in 199o or in 1995 were registered at the beginning of February 2004. The findings were compared with the data on all physicians in the BIG-register as per 31 December 2002 (n = 54,624) and with those from a study in Groningen (n = 333).

Of the 177 students who had passed their final examinations in 199o, more than 13 years earlier, 45% were registered as a medical specialist, 28% as a nonspecialised physician and 12% as a general practitioner. Of the 136 who had passed their final examinations in 1995, more than 8 years earlier, the corresponding percentages were 8%, 61% and 23%, respectively. Compared with data for the Netherlands as a whole and for Groningen, the percentage of specialists among those who had passed their final examinations in Leiden in 199o was high and the percentage of general practitioners was low, but the reverse was true of those who had passed their final examinations in 1995. Of those who had passed their final examinations in Leiden in 1990 and 1995, 5% and 4%, respectively, either were not registered as a physician or had emigrated. The specialities that were registered most often by physicians who had passed their final examinations in 199o were obstetrics and gynaecology (14%), internal medicine (9%), ophthalmology (9%), anaesthesiology (8%), surgery (8%) and psychiatry (8%).