Abstract
This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Aims - Our main objective was to explore the motivations that led our third year Belgian students to study medicine. Method - We used a mixed method as we collected both quantitative and qualitative measures at the same time through online surveys. Chi-Square tests were used to examine differences in motivation between gender of the participants. A thematic content analysis was then conducted on the open-ended question using a qualitative approach. Results and conclusions - The final sample consists of 243 third-year students (87 men and 156 women). Chi-square analyses revealed gender differences in motivations to study medicine. The motivation most often reported by our students in both qualitative and quantitative analyses is "altruistic motivation". The qualitative analysis identified, within this category, sometimes unrealistic beliefs about the practice of medicine, leading to the conclusion that it is necessary to put medical students in contact with the reality of the field as soon as possible. Furthermore, the lack of focus on the relationship with the patient within the formal curriculum and subsequent medical practice could be the cause of a form of disillusionment among these students. We believe that more lessons on relational aspects should be offered to them. Perspectives - Finally, in addition to identifying and classifying the motivations present among medical students, we believe that some perspectives are the analysis of the interactions between these motivations in 1) the determination of the choice of study and 2) the attitudes and behaviours that will result from it.
Highlights
Current physicians are criticized for a lack of empathic and communication skills (Hojat et al, 2004; Bombeke et al, 2010; Neumann et al, 2011; Rosenbaum, 2017) but are applauded as heroes for their tireless involvement in the global health crisis of SARS-COVID-19
The motivation most often reported by our students in both qualitative and quantitative analyses is "altruistic motivation"
In addition to collecting data of different types, this questionnaire first allowed an exploratory investigation of students' motivations, and to study their position on the motivations previously identified in the literature on motivations for studying medicine (20 items). This approach to data collection was consistent with the goals of this study, as this study explored whether the motivations identified by the authors of this field were present in the target sample, in what proportion, and whether any other trends emerged from the data
Summary
Current physicians are criticized for a lack of empathic and communication skills (Hojat et al, 2004; Bombeke et al, 2010; Neumann et al, 2011; Rosenbaum, 2017) but are applauded as heroes for their tireless involvement in the global health crisis of SARS-COVID-19. Motivational factors may slightly vary from culture to culture, the results of this study carried out in 1999 have been continuously confirmed since It is the « person oriented » motivation called « altruism » that appears to be the primary motivation, most often cited by the students surveyed (Hyppölä et al, 1998; Girasek et al, 2011; Korkmaz and Şenol, 2013; Sulong et al, 2014; Heikkilä et al, 2015; Halari et al, 2016; Wouters et al, 2017; Afzal et al, 2019). "social status" was reported as an important motivation by students (Seetharaman and Logaraj, 2012; Wouters et al, 2017)
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