TY - JOUR
T1 - Working in preventive medicine or not? Flawed perceptions decrease chance of retaining students for the profession
AU - Van Anh Thi Nguyen, null
AU - Koenings, Karen D.
AU - Wright, E. Pamela
AU - Hoat Ngoc Luu, [No Value]
AU - Scherpbier, Albert J. J. A.
AU - van Merrienboer, Jeroen J. G.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the project “Strengthening teaching and research capacity of preventive medicine in Vietnam”—NUFFIC for funding the study. We thank the Board of Directors and preventive medical students of four medical universities in Vietnam for their endorsement and willingness to participate in the study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s).
PY - 2019/5/15
Y1 - 2019/5/15
N2 - BackgroundRecruiting and retaining students in preventive medical (PM) specialties has never been easy; one main challenge is how to select appropriate students with proper motivation. Understanding how students perceive PM practice differently from practicing doctors is necessary to guide students, especially for those for whom PM is only a substitute for medicine as their first study preference, properly during their study and, later, the practice of PM.MethodsOne thousand three hundred eighty-sixPM students in four Vietnamese medical schools and 101PM doctors filled out a questionnaire about the relevance of 44 characteristics of working in PM. ANOVAs were conducted to define the relationship between students' interest, year of study, willingness to work in PM, and the degree to which students had realistic perceptions of PM practice, compared to doctors' perceptions.ResultsOverall, compared to doctors' perceptions, students overestimated the importance of most of the investigated PM practice's characteristics. Moreover, students' perception related to their preference and willing to pursue a career in PM after graduation. In particular, students for whom PM was their first choice had more realistic perceptions of community practice than those who chose PM as their second choice. And, second-choice students had more realistic perceptions than first-choice students in their final years of study, but expected higher work stress in PM practice. Students who were willing to pursue a career in PM rated the importance of community practice higher than those who were not. We also found that students' perception changed during training as senior students had more realistic perceptions of clinical aspects and working stress than junior students, even though they overemphasized the importance of the community aspects of PM practice.ConclusionsTo increase the number of students actually entering the PM field after graduation, the flawed perceptions of students about the real working environment of PM doctors should be addressed through vocation-oriented activities in the curriculum targeted on groups of students who are most likely to have unrealistic perceptions. Our findings also have implications for other less attractive primary health care specialties that experience problems with recruiting and retaining students.
AB - BackgroundRecruiting and retaining students in preventive medical (PM) specialties has never been easy; one main challenge is how to select appropriate students with proper motivation. Understanding how students perceive PM practice differently from practicing doctors is necessary to guide students, especially for those for whom PM is only a substitute for medicine as their first study preference, properly during their study and, later, the practice of PM.MethodsOne thousand three hundred eighty-sixPM students in four Vietnamese medical schools and 101PM doctors filled out a questionnaire about the relevance of 44 characteristics of working in PM. ANOVAs were conducted to define the relationship between students' interest, year of study, willingness to work in PM, and the degree to which students had realistic perceptions of PM practice, compared to doctors' perceptions.ResultsOverall, compared to doctors' perceptions, students overestimated the importance of most of the investigated PM practice's characteristics. Moreover, students' perception related to their preference and willing to pursue a career in PM after graduation. In particular, students for whom PM was their first choice had more realistic perceptions of community practice than those who chose PM as their second choice. And, second-choice students had more realistic perceptions than first-choice students in their final years of study, but expected higher work stress in PM practice. Students who were willing to pursue a career in PM rated the importance of community practice higher than those who were not. We also found that students' perception changed during training as senior students had more realistic perceptions of clinical aspects and working stress than junior students, even though they overemphasized the importance of the community aspects of PM practice.ConclusionsTo increase the number of students actually entering the PM field after graduation, the flawed perceptions of students about the real working environment of PM doctors should be addressed through vocation-oriented activities in the curriculum targeted on groups of students who are most likely to have unrealistic perceptions. Our findings also have implications for other less attractive primary health care specialties that experience problems with recruiting and retaining students.
KW - Student perception
KW - Characteristics of specialty
KW - Preventive medicine
KW - First-choice students
KW - Student motivation
KW - Career choice
KW - CAREER CHOICE
KW - MOTIVATION
KW - EDUCATION
U2 - 10.1186/s12960-019-0368-2
DO - 10.1186/s12960-019-0368-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 31092249
SN - 1478-4491
VL - 17
JO - Human Resources for Health
JF - Human Resources for Health
IS - 1
M1 - 31
ER -