The choice of family medicine as a specialty: The first choice or an alternative?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32385/rpmgf.v26i4.10762Keywords:
Family Medicine, Medical Residency, Career Choice, Medical School CurriculaAbstract
Objectives: To evaluate the influence of reasons presented by Family Medicine specialty residents, for the choice of this specialty, in Portugal; to analyze the importance of intrinsic motives related to Family Medicine, in their professional choice. Study Design: Observational, cross-sectional, analytic study. Setting: Mainland Portugal. Participants: Doctors who began Family Medicine residency in Portugal, in 2005 (N = 228). Methods: Postal questionnaire survey using 14 five points Likert scale items, representing the reasons identified as motives for choosing Family Medicine. Descriptive statistics were calculated and analytic tests were used to compare the relationship between the variables (a = 0.05). Results: The response rate was 47.8% (n = 109). Factors intrinsically related to the characteristics of the specialty (M = 26.9; SD = 4.24) were more relevant than the personal or others motives (M = 17.4; SD = 4.13), in their option for Family Medicine; pregraduate training is referred as having some influence by 23.4% of the residents. Conclusions: For most of Family Medicine residents the specialty choice is more intrinsically related with the characteristics of Family Medicine. We consider the need of rethinking the role of Family Medicine discipline in pregraduate curricula and the influence of the medical schools in specialty choice.Downloads
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