The effect of career guidance on undergraduate medical students' specialty preferences

To design and implement a career guidance programme for medical students, and to evaluate its effectiveness.

The quasi-experimental single-group study was conducted at the College of Medicine, Jouf University, Sakaka, Saudi Arabia, during the 2018-19 academic year. A modified Medical Career Development Inventory covering 5 areas was used to assess how much students' thinking or planning had improved after implementing the designed career guidance programme following Kern's 6 steps for course design. This was done through focussed group discussions. In the second phase, a comprehensive sample comprising 4th and 5th year male and female medical students was enrolled to assess their readiness, planning and choice of specialties, and to compare the same variables post-intervention. Data was analysed using SPSS 22.

There were 50 students in the first phase; 30(60%) males and 20(40%) females. In phase II, there were 82 subjects; 47(57.3%) males and 35(42.7%) females. Pre-intervention mean result was 2.60±0.29 which increased post-intervention to 3.16±0.20 (p=0.018), suggesting an improved degree of vocational development.

The career guidance programme significantly improved degree of vocational development and readiness to cope with developmental tasks encountered throughout a physician's career.