Migration intention of final year medical students

Abstract

Abstract Background One out of three Moroccan doctors is out of the country, and the ratio doctor per population is 7.3 per 10000 people (recommended 15.3 doctors per 10000 people). The objectives of this study are to estimate the prevalence of migration intention of final year medical student and to describe the profile of student who wants to migrate. Methods A cross-sectional study was carried out between 01 January and 31 January 2021. We included Moroccan final year medical students who did their entire medical school curriculum in FMPC. Electronic Self administered questionnaire was used though Google form. The data were described through mean, standard deviation, median, quartiles, frequency and percentage. The khi2 test was used to test the association between migration intention and social-economic variables. The data was processed using R 3.6.3. Findings We included 251 final year students. The 70.1% of final year students had intention to leave the country, of which 63.6% were female. The students were attracted by foreign countries because better training (97.6%), better working conditions (99%) and quality of life (97.2%). The students intended to leave the country because they were not satisfied about formation (95.2%) and salary (97%) also the denigrating of doctor in media (83.6%). Germany was the favorite destination (34%). We did not find any significant association between the migration intention and socioeconomic profile of students. Conclusions The health policymakers should improve working conditions, training quality and salary of health workers to reduce medical student migration. Key messages The migration intention of final medical students is one of the keys indicators about the future of country healthcare system. Reducing the medical students migration is crucial to build and maintain a strong healthcare system.