The professional values and expectations of medical students

This paper, presenting the findings from a 1975 survey of first-year medical students in the state of North Carolina, describes medical students' professional orientations by focusing on specific values and expectations which may have relevance for health care problems. The professional orientations concern four problem areas: physicians' relationships with patients, political and economic change in the medical profession, the treatment of women physicians and patients, and geographic and specialty maldistribution of physicians. The data suggest that incoming medical students are concerned with helping people but not necessarily through political means, committed to some geographic and specialty areas of patient need, choosing medicine for reasons other than economic rewards but not opposed to physicians' large income and status, and somewhat unaware of discrimination toward women physicians and patients.