Beliefs and attitudes of clinical year students concerning medical specialties: an Ibadan Medical School study

Abstract

In order to understand their attitudes to 10 medical specialties, a 40-item self-report questionnaire was administered to the first and final year clinical students of the University of Ibadan. One hundred and twenty-one first year and 150 final year students participated, constituting 81% response rates respectively, in the two classes. The findings indicate that many factors influence specialty choice, the principal ones being: expectation of material rewards; societal appreciation of specialty and specialists; response of specialty patients to treatment; and the role of specialty teachers. It seems that specialties viewed positively in these dimensions (such as surgery, paediatrics, internal medicine, and obstetrics and gynaecology) are more highly favoured than the others (such as radiology, pathology, psychiatry, anaesthesia and community medicine), which were viewed rather negatively in this regard. Generally speaking, opinion on specialties was similar, not only between the two classes, but also between this cohort and comparable groups in developed nations. In order to enhance the spread of specialty man-power development to meet the goal of health care for all, suggestions are made about how to improve the positive appreciation of the less favoured specialties among undergraduates.