The Motivation of Preclinical Students to be A Doctor: A Turkish Perspective in the Private Educational Sector

Abstract

Global estimates confirm the future need for more health cadres, including doctors. The study aims to investigate reasons to choose medicine as a career among students at a Turkish private medical school. A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted among the first-, second-and third-class medical students receiving education in the second semester of the 2017-2018 academic year at the BezmialemVakif University, Istanbul, Turkey. The universal sampling technique using a semi-structured questionnaire was recruited to collect the data. The SPSS 16.0 package used to analyze the data, and the statistically significant was considered at less than 0.05. The mean age of students was 20.3 + 4.3 years (range 18-23 years). More than half (57.3%) were females, and most of them (76.5%) lived with their parents. The majority (87.5%) of them inquired about medical college, and 85.1% of them won the medical school in the first trial. The main reasons to study medicine were personal preference(75.7%), studying medicine is appealing(52.4%),humanitarian profession(52.2%), the ready availability of work for physicians(42.2%), challenging carrier providing an opportunity to solve mysteries(40.8%), childhood dream(39.2%), profiting profession(35.7%), my parents’ vision and choice(31.8%), respectively. Almost the motives behind choosing to study medicine are similar across societies but different in the priorities.