Mohammed S Alghamdi and Abdullah A Ashour
KAU Hospital, KSA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Orthop Muscular Syst
Objective: To determine the aptitude of King Abdulaziz University (KAU) under-graduating medical students in making a career choice. To identify the factors affecting their career choices and determine where orthopedic surgery stands as a career choice amongst other specialties and to assess whether trends and perceptions change once the students graduate and are near completing their internship. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 6th year medical students and medical interns at KAU, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia during the period of February to April 2015. A self-administered questionnaire was formulated and converted electronically and sent to the respondents via email. Responses were recorded in Google spreadsheet and data analysis was done using SPSS version 23. Results: It was found that among the 232 respondents, internal medicine was the most prevalent specialty chosen by both 6th year students and interns while orthopedic sits on the sixth rank. Personal interest was the most important factor in choosing specialty followed by positive experience during undergraduate elective rotation. Future job opportunity is also a consideration as well as previous positive clerkship experience and the desire to serve the community. Conclusion: The specialty choice of KAU medical students do not lean or is not affected by fixed factors which include their GPA, level of education and their gender. Instead, their choice of specialty is greatly affected by their personal interest which is considered to be subjective by nature.
Email: Alghamdi-1992@hotmail.com
