Abstract
Background: Gender plays a significant role in the selection of medical specialty. Few studies have been conducted to explore the impact of gender differences on specialty choosing among Chinese medical students.Methods: The specialty choices of 648 students from six consecutive classes in an 8-year MD program were collected and compared between male and female students. A total of 110 students from one graduating class were surveyed by a questionnaire covering 22 career influencing factors. Each factor has a scale of zero to three (zero = no influence, one = mild influence, two = moderate influence, and three = strong influence).Results: Statistically significant gender differences were observed in 10 out of 16 specialties. Most male students limited their specialty choices to surgery (64%), internal medicine (12%), and orthopedics (12%), compared with a relatively diversified pattern in female students. For male students, the top three influencing factors were personal interest, future job prospects for the chosen specialty, and job opportunity in academic medicine. The strongest influencing factors of females were personal interest, specialty-specific knowledge and skills, and the sense of achievement. The expected salary was ranked among the top 10 influencing factors in male but not in females, while the work-life balance was ranked among the top 10 factors in females but not in males.Conclusion: There is a significant gender difference regarding specialty choices among Chinese medical students. Career coaching is needed to help students in their specialty choosing process.
Highlights
Around the world, the selection of a medical specialty as a career choice has important implications for both medical students and their healthcare system
All medical students from six successive classes (Class 2012– 2017) in an 8-year MD program at Fudan University, China, were involved in this study. All students in this premier program had excellent academic credentials upon admission to medical school (National College Entrance Exam scores were ranked at top 0.1–1%)
Female students had more diverse specialty choices compared with male students
Summary
The selection of a medical specialty as a career choice has important implications for both medical students and their healthcare system. Medical students’ specialty choice is associated with income, prestige, work hours, and lifestyle. Numerous studies conducted in both Western and Eastern societies have demonstrated that gender differences impact medical students’ specialty choices and are associated with many factors such as external (e.g., parental) perceptions of specialty characteristics, perceived prestige of the specialty, worklife balance, job-related tasks or responsibilities, and personal interest [3, 8,9,10,11,12,13]. Few studies have been conducted to explore the impact of gender differences on specialty choosing among Chinese medical students
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