The speciality choices of future physicians – A state university sample

INTRODUCTION: Our study aims to examine the thoughts of final-year (intern) medical students about their specialty choices and the reasons underlying these thoughts.
METHODS: Our study is a descriptive cross-sectional study. Intern students studying in 2022 and 2023 were asked questions about their sociodemographic characteristics and specialty choice plans. In the study, logistic regression models were created for significant variables after univariate analysis. For statistical significance, a significance level of p < 0.05 was accepted.
RESULTS: The most common reason for those who did not want to specialize was the difficulty of the assistantship process, while those who wanted to specialize most commonly cited the desire to work in a specific branch that would provide professional satisfaction. It was determined that being male increases the choices for surgical sciences by 1.6 times. When socioeconomic status was examined, those with low status were found to prefer surgical sciences 4.6 times more than those with moderate status and 2.5 times more than those with high status. Choosing a surgical medical sciences increases high financial returns by 2.5 times, the desire to spend time for oneself/family by 1.8 times, the low malpractice risk in the specialty branch by 4.5 times, the difficulty of the education process by 1.8 times, and the influence of lessons/internships/instructors by 2.1 times for internal-basic medical sciences.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Improving the economic conditions of physicians, minimizing malpractice risks, and achieving work/life balance are the most important topics that need to be developed for the successful delivery of health services to the public.