Professional socialization in dentistry: a longitudinal analysis of changes in students' expected professional...

In this continuing longitudinal study on professional socialization of dental students, further analysis of the changes occurring in their attitudes towards the chosen profession is carried out. Although students' basic norms and values remained generally unchanged over time, disillusionment set in with regard to most of the expected professional rewards, in particular the anticipated 'intellectual challenge'. Unlikely, medical students who served as a comparison showed greatest disparity between expectation at admission and at graduation with regard to the economic side of their profession ('high income' and 'job security'). In spite of the growing cynicism of dental students throughout the years of education, apparent in the steady increase in expectations of extrinsic rewards and decreases in expectations of intrinsic rewards, these changes may be only situational in nature, for the same group of graduates showed a return to a more idealistic outlook of their profession 8 years post-graduation.