Background: Choosing a specialty is one of the most significant decisions medical students face. The decision is certainly multi-factorial but may be influenced by ideas of what each field offers for their future lifestyle including the ability to travel and provide outreach during their career.
Methods: 4th year medical students (n=204) at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, NY were surveyed via the internet. Responses were collected anonymously. Data was analyzed and correlations were computed with chi-square test.
Results: There was a 29.9% response rate. More than half of respondents reported plans to be involved in global medicine (59.3%) at some point in their career. A lower proportion reported a causal relationship between opportunities to work abroad and their chosen specialty (22%) and chosen residency program (15.5%). There was a statistically significant difference in the number of students who selected careers in Emergency Medicine, based on the ability to practice global medicine within that field, compared to general medical specialties (p < 0.006) and surgical specialties (p < 0.035). No other specialty showed global medicine to be a statistically significant factor in specialty or program choice.
Discussions: Although, the number of residency programs offering international research and travel opportunities has been increasing in recent years, this does not seem to be a significant factor to medical students when choosing a field or residency program. The main determinants of specialty and residency choice for Generation Y remain to be elucidated.
Keywords: Specialty global health
Topics: CREOG & APGO Annual Meeting, 2016, Student, Resident, Clerkship Director, Residency Director, Practice-Based Learning & Improvement, UME, Global Health, Public Health,
Laura Twist, MD, SUNY HSC at Brooklyn; Nagaraj Gabbur, MD
