Twelve tips for having more meaningful conversations with medical students on specialty career choice.

Making a career choice is a multifaceted process and support for medical students on career choice is pivotal. Not all medical schools have programs or guidelines to support having meaningful conversations with medical students. However, medical students have questions and are seeking answers. This article presents twelve tips for having meaningful conversations with medical students for educators, mentors and internship tutors. The twelve tips have been grouped into three categories: the conversation, the reflection and the actions students can take in the process of their specialty career choice.

Some residents drop out of specialty training. How important is prior clinical experience? A survey among residents in the Netherlands.

Objectives: The drop-out rate among residents across all medical specialties in the Netherlands approximates 12.7%. This implies a capacity loss in the medical workforce, a waste of educational resources and personal damage to individuals. The aim of our study was to investigate reasons for dropping out of residency and the relationship with medical work experience after medical school and prior to residency, which is common among Dutch graduates. Method: A questionnaire listing 28 reasons for drop-out was developed and tested. The questionnaire was sent in a nationwide survey to all residents who drop out between 1 September 2017 and 1 September 2019. The respondents were asked to indicate on a 5-point Likert scale, how they weighed reasons for drop-out. Factor analysis was applied to identify dominant factors. Results: The response rate was 39% (N=129; 99 females) representing all medical specialties. The factor structure of our measure showed 5 factors; high emotional job demands, lack of professional satisfaction, incompatible lifestyle, tensions in working relationships and disappointing career perspectives. Of the respondents 69 (54%) had prior clinical experience as a physician-not-in-training in the same medical specialty before residency. The factor "lack of professional satisfaction" weighed heavier for respondents without prior experience as a reason for drop-out. Conclusion: Of influence on dropping out of residency is the lack of a clear image of the responsibilities as a physician within the residency of choice, fuelled by limited prior experience after medical school and before residency. One third of dropouts confirmed that prior physician experience within the same specialty could have prevented dropping out or prevented choosing this specialty in the first place.

Traveling by winding roads or highways: Stability of medical students' specialty preferences over time.

INTRODUCTION: Medical students switch career preferences during medical school and likely distinguish themselves in stability of preference over time. The purpose of our study was to gain insight in career paths stability of medical students. METHOD: The authors conducted a longitudinal, four sessions interview study with medical students with three intervals over a three and a half-year period. From all 24 participants the first and second career preferences were documented, analyzed and we calculated a stability score, to interpret career preference stability. RESULTS: Three different pathways were found: a 'winding road' with low stability (0-7 points); a 'country road' with medium stability (8-14 points); and a 'highway' with high stability (15-22 points). CONCLUSION: This study provides a longitudinal view of how the stability of career preference, including the first and second career preference, evolves over time. While we only studied a small sample, the characterization may hold when larger samples are studied.

Dynamics of career choice among students in undergraduate medical courses. A BEME systematic review: BEME Guide No. 33.

INTRODUCTION: Due to the lack of a theoretically embedded overview of the recent literature on medical career decision-making, this study provides an outline of these dynamics. Since differences in educational routes to the medical degree likely affect career choice dynamics, this study focuses on medical career decision-making in educational systems with a Western European curriculum structure. METHODS: A systematic search of electronic databases (Medline, Embase) was conducted from January 2008 to November 2014. A panel of seven independent reviewers performed the data extraction, quality assessment and data synthesis using the Bland-Meurer model of medical specialty choice as a reference. RESULTS: Fifty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria for the review. Factors associated with specialty preference or career choice can be classified in five main categories: (1) medical school characteristics (e.g., curriculum structure), (2) student characteristics (e.g., age, personality), (3) student values (e.g., personal preference), (4) career needs to be satisfied (e.g., expected income, status, and work-life balance), and (5) perception of specialty characteristics (e.g., extracurricular or curricular experiences). Especially career needs and perceptions of specialty characteristics are often associated with medical career decision-making. CONCLUSION: Our results support that medical career decisions are formed by a matching of perceptions of specialty characteristics with personal needs. However, the process of medical career decision-making is not yet fully understood. Besides identifying possible predictors, future research should focus on detecting interrelations between hypothesized predictors and identify the determinants and interrelations at the various stages of the medical career decision-making process.