Medical Undergraduates’ Attitude and Perceptions About Choosing a Career in Basic Sciences

Choosing Career in Basic Sciences

Abstract

Background: There is lack of awareness among medical students regarding career prospects in basic medical sciences. Also, they are not encouraged to pursue such career. Objective: To identify characteristics that affect a student's decision to pursue a career in basic sciences. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Settings: Aziz Fatimah medical and dental college, Faisalabad Pakistan. Duration: Four months from August 16, 2022 to December 16, 2022. Methods: A sample size of 230 was taken. About 46 students were taken from every class from 1st-5th year. Medical undergraduate students who gave consent were included. A validated questionnaire titled “To evaluate medical and dental students and graduates’ inclination towards Basic Sciences as a future career option” was used. The data was analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 25. Frequencies and percentages were calculated. Chi-square test of significance was applied. P-value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: About 76 participants (33%) showed their interest in pursuing career in basic sciences while majority of them were either not sure about this or they don’t want to pursue career in basic sciences. Most important reason for choosing basic sciences were liking a particular subject (32, 13.9%) followed by better balance between work and life (20, 8.7%). While, most important reasons for not choosing basic sciences were they want to become clinicians (85, 37%) followed by no interest in teaching job (22, 9.6%). Conclusion: There is lack of motivation and awareness among medical students regarding career prospects in basic sciences.