The Incentives Affecting the Selection of Future Specialty of Medical Interns

Background: The dramatic increase in the number of general practitioners and their limited job situations has increased the desire to continue studies in specialized fields. However, different fields are not desired in the same way. Therefore, to plan for the guidance of general practitioners towards fields needed for the society, understanding the motives for choosing a field is necessary. The present study is aimed to investigate the incentives affecting the selection of specialty field in the students of medicine of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.  Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 243 interns. In this study, the medical school graduation questionnaire was used. After collecting the data, they were first coded into fields and then in four groups of surgery, internal medicine, diagnostics medicine, and psychiatry and analyzed using SPSS software version 19 and Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests. Results: In this study, the five most popular fields were radiology, cardiovascular, ophthalmology, pathology, and dermatology, respectively. Fields with the least interest were infectious diseases, oncology and internal medicine. There was a significant difference between the desired field and sex (p = 0.003). Among factors affecting the choice of specialty, good income had the highest mean, which was significantly different between men and women (p = 0.011).  Conclusion: Currently, it seems that students are more concerned with issues such as income and the ease of study than they are concerned with their interests and academic qualities and competencies.