Research Trend, Career Preferences and its Effective Factors among Undergraduate Medical Students in Jinnah Sind Medical University, Pakistan

Background: Research at undergraduate and graduate level is important in deciding career fields and future profession. The undergraduate studies are greatly enriched by doing research work. This study assess research trends among medical students by evaluating their research career choices, factors influencing their research career preferences and future plans at Jinnah Sind Medical University (JSMU) in Pakistan . Methods: This study was based on cross-sectional survey in which 256 students were enrolled from 1st to 5th year of medical education. Results: The study showed that there was a drastic change in approach to research from higher to lower grades as junior medical students were more interested in research work compared to seniors. It was found that most of the students planned to do both research and clinical practices and least number of students were interested only in biomedical and clinical research as a career choice. Surgery was ranked as the first choice by the students for research followed by internal medicine and gynecology. Conclusions: According to this study, Student’s career decision was mainly influenced by the desire of their family. There should be an official research division in every medical college and university to encourage students towards research. It can be concluded that there is yet less inclination of medical students towards research so there is need to facilitate students towards research in medical sciences by mentorship and developing better research infrastructure in medical universities.