Career choices among Saudi medical students

To identify the career choices, intended practice locations, and reasons for career choices of final-year Saudi medical students.

A total of 302 final-year students at the four Saudi medical colleges were asked to complete a self-report questionnaire at the end of the 1994 academic year.

A total of 253 students (84%) responded (149 men and 104 women). The most frequently chosen specialties were internal medicine (17%), surgery (16%), pediatrics (14%), and obstetrics-gynecology (11%). Twenty-seven percent were not sure of their future career choices. More of the men chose surgery, but more of the women chose obstetrics-gynecology and ophthalmology. The leading reasons for selecting a specialty were "personal interest," "a chance to help people," "availability of postgraduate training," "few specialists in the country," and "prestige." The most frequently chosen locations for postgraduate training were Saudi Arabia (56%) and Canada (40%). The qualifying examinations the students wished to pass were mostly the Canadian boards (49%) and the Arab boards (48%). A majority intended to practice in hospitals (90%) and in cities (85%).

The small proportions of students who chose family medicine and some other specialties indicate that the current drastic deficiency of trained Saudi primary health care physicians will continue unless targeted strategies to produce more of these physicians are undertaken.