The dynamics of clinical students speciality preference: A study of the College of Medicine, University of Lagos

Abstract

Background: Undergraduate medical education is only an initial step in training the highly differentiated doctor. The medical specialties chosen by doctors for their career play an important part in workforce planning of healthcare services and as a predictive index in the composition of medical graduates and potential physicians. However, there is little theoretical understanding of how different medical specialties are perceived or how choices are made. Objective: The aim of this study is to shed more light on how medical students view specialisation as well as to discover the factors that strongly influence their choice of medical specialty. Methodology: This study was a descriptive cross-sectional study carried out using anonymous self-administered questionnaire. Simple random sampling technique was used. Data management and analysis was done using SPSS software version 15.0. Results: The response rate was 93.7%. The respondents had a good overall knowledge about specialisation in Medicine as 175 (98.3%) of the respondents knew about specialisation in Medicine as well as the different specialties in Medicine. Majority 126 (70.8%) of the respondents would want to specialise and about two-thirds, 112 (62.9%) indicated preferred specialties as Obstetrics & Gynecology 31 (17.5%), Pediatrics 30 (16.7%), Surgery 25 (14.3%), Internal medicine 17 (9.5%) and Public Health 14 (7.9%). Conclusion: The study revealed the patterns of preference of medical students to medical specialty and factors that strongly influence their choice during clinical postings.