CALGARY — The declining number of medical students choosing family medicine in favor of other specialities is a cause of concern for health care planning: A study conducted at three medical schools in Calgary, Edmonton mad Vancouver attempts to show some of the influences that affect the students choices. The results of the study were reported in the Canadian Association of Medicine Journal, June 2004.

The study identifies several characteristics of those indicating family medicine as their career preferences at entry to medical school:

* they were concerned about medical lifestyle and to having lived in smaller communities at the time of completing high school;

* they were also less likely to be hospital oriented;

* they were much more likely to demonstrate a societal orientation and to desire a varied scope of practice.
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583 students completed the questionnaire. Only 20% of the respondents identified family medicine as their first career option, mad about half ranked family medicine in their top 3 choices.

The researchers suggest that “if the factors that Influence medical students to choose family medicine can be identified accurately, then it may be possible to use such a model to change medical school admission policies so that the number of students choosing to enter family medicine can be increased.