Specialty choice among students entering the fourth year of medical school

In this article, the authors explore senior medical students' specialty preferences and investigate factors that influence those preferences. The design of the study was a written questionnaire. The setting was a large, state-supported university-based southern medical school. The patients/participants were students entering the fourth year of medical school. One hundred seventy-six students (97% of the class) completed the questionnaire. Of those students, 12.5% were interested only in primary care, 43.2% were interested in both primary and nonprimary care, and 44.3% were interested in nonprimary care careers. Most students considering both primary and nonprimary care careers were interested in general internal medicine or general pediatrics and subspecialties within those fields. Career choice was influenced most strongly by several factors--clerkship experiences, the fact that it fit with skills/abilities, physician role models, the challenge, and intellectual content. Encouragement from family and other students, prestige, and income potential had the least impact on career choice. Students interested in primary care careers valued providing continuity of care much higher than did those interested in nonprimary care specialties. The authors conclude that students' experiences in medical school, particularly during the clerkships, have a significant impact on their specialty choice.