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Family Medicine Specialty Choice at Matriculation and Graduation
John M Westfall1, Douglas H Fernald2, Douglas B Kamerow3
1DARTNet Institute, Aurora, CO.
Family Medicine
|April 24, 2025
Summary
Most medical students change their specialty choice during medical school. Family medicine gains many students during medical school, highlighting the importance of departmental support for specialty choice.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education
- Physician Workforce
- Primary Care
Background:
- Family medicine attracts a variable proportion of medical students.
- Understanding shifts in specialty choice is crucial for workforce planning.
Purpose of the Study:
- To measure changes in allopathic medical students' specialty choices from matriculation to graduation.
- To analyze the dynamics of specialty selection in family medicine.
Main Methods:
- Compared specialty choices from the Matriculating Student Questionnaire (MSQ) (2014-2017) with the Graduation Questionnaire (GQ) (2018-2021).
- Analyzed data from 55,635 students who completed both surveys.
Main Results:
- Over 70% of students changed their intended specialty between starting medical school and graduating.
- Only 45% of students initially interested in family medicine remained in that specialty.
- A significant majority (70%) of students choosing family medicine at graduation had initially selected another specialty.
Conclusions:
- Most medical students alter their specialty decisions during their education.
- While some students are dissuaded from family medicine, many others choose it during medical school.
- Family medicine departments play a vital role in recruiting and supporting students' choice of the specialty.
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