Motivation for medical school: the relationship to gender and specialty preferences in a nationwide sample

Objectives Motivation for going to medical school and career plans of a 1 y ear cohort of students entering medical school in Norway (n = 420 response rate: 90%, 54% women, mean age: 22 years) were surveyed by a postal questio nnaire the first month after they had started. Design Motives for choosing medicine were categorized into three indexes: ' people orientated', 'status/security orientated' and 'natural science orien tated' motives. Setting University of Oslo. Subjects Medical students. Results Students picked out which they preferred among 53 specialties. The highest motivational scores were on the 'person orientated' index, female s tudents scoring higher than men. Female students were, however, nearly as h ighly motivated by status/security and interests in natural science as were men. 'Person orientated' and 'natural science orientated' motives exerted the strongest influence on specialty preferences. Those who preferred famil y medicine were more person orientated and less natural science orientated, while those who preferred internal medicine were more natural science orie ntated. Father being a physician did not influence the motivational pattern , but increased the preference for laboratory and internal medicine. Freque ntly repeated upper secondary school exams for acceptance into medical scho ol were negatively related to natural science motivation, and to increased preference for becoming a surgeon. Conclusions In this first month of the curriculum students regarded person oriented motives as the most important fur becoming a doctor.