[Doctors to be have a lack of interest for general practice. Results from a national Poll in a population of 1 870 undergraduate french medical students concerning speciality choice]

Objectives: Analyze the professional wishes of a large sample of medical students in their 6(th) year before the National Ranking Exam.

Materials and methods: In March 2009, 3 215 students have participated in a National Practice Ranking Exam. Before getting their results on the Internet, they were invited to answer a questionnaire that included the choice of specialty within 37 choices and socio-demographics data.

Results: 1 870 students (59.8%) responded to the questionnaire. Two thirds of students were female (n=1 168; 62.5%) The ranking ranged from 3 to rank 3 215 (mean 1 529+/-20.9). A quarter of students (n=432; 23.1%) wanted to become general practitioners. Medical specialties were more often chosen than surgical specialties (excluding gynecology) (n=521, 27.9% vs. n=344; 18.4%). Gender sifnificantly influenced choice of a specialty (p<0.0001). Men were more attracted to anesthetics [11% (n=77/702) vs. 6% (n=82/1 168)] and surgery [29.9% (n=210) vs. 11.5% (n=134)] while women preferred gynecology [9.2% (n=107) vs. 3.3% (n=23)] and general medicine [28.1% (n=328) vs. 14.8% (n=104)]. On the ranking of mean grade of students, general medicine was last but one. Students wanted to take 74% of available residency offer in gynecology, 62% in surgery, 57% in medicine but only 14 % of general medicine.

Conclusion: This study confirms the feminization of the medical population, the influence of gender on career choices and the lack of interest of students for general medicine.