RESUMO
Objectives: to determine the attitudes of international undergraduate medical students in a medical college from Pakistan towards different specialties as career choices and to determine the reasons in making a career choice
Material and methods: a cross sectional study, conducted by distributing a questionnaire to semester 1, 3 and semester 7, 9 students studying at Dow International Medical College, Karachi in January 2012. Questionnaire consist of questions regarding demographic characteristics, specialty choices and reasons that influenced career choice was distributed to 338 students in selected study semesters, however 148 students answered the questionnaire. Students were asked to choose the most preferred career from a list of 14 specialty options that were listed after literature review and faculty feedback. Reasons for specialty preference were also asked from the students
Results: a total of 148 students, [including 54% males and 46% females] responded to the questionnaire. Surgical [31%] and Medical [23%] specialties were the two most frequently selected specialties. Pediatrics was chosen by 18% of the students. Gender also had an influence for the choice of the specialty. Most preferred reasons for choosing a particular specialty were high income potential [37%], influence of a role model in the specialty [32%], inclination for specialty before medical school [30%] and others
Conclusions: surgery, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Dermatology were the most preferred specialty preferences of medical students at Dow International Medical College Karachi. Medical students' career choices regarding various specialties are affected by several factors
RESUMO
Objectives: To document the medicines taken by patients, with chest pain reporting to the cardiac emergency room, and to determine the role of patients and health care providers to deal with cardiac emergency
Patients and methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at National Institute of Cardiovascular Disease [NICVD] Karachi from June 01 to September 2007. Patients with chest pain were taken detailed history and were especially asked for the medicines taken by them prior to presenting at NICVD after which they were treated as per routine. A predesigned proforma was used to record the data
Results: The study subjects had a male ratio of 64:36, from various occupations and socio-economic strata. The patients who came by ambulance were 100 [15%], and the medications were used by only 152 [22.9%]. This was the first visit to cardiac emergency of 403 [60.8%] patients. One hundred fifty-three [23%] patients were referred, 67 [10.1%] transferred, and 443 [66.8%] came directly because of their symptoms. 283 [42.7%] patients had visited another doctor before coming to NICVD
Conclusion: The number of male patients with chest pain reporting to cardiac emergency was more; a vast majority did not have access to ambulance and did not take emergency measures. In majority of cases, other health care providers did not advise to take some medicine in emergency