A survey of factors influencing career preference in new-entrant and exiting medical students from four UK medical schools

Table 4 Results of eight logistic regression models predicting whether a specialty is top three choice for Year 5 students (only factors with p < 0.01 shown)

Dependent variable	Independent variable	B	OR [95% CI]	*p value*
Anaesthesia
	Dundee [ref. Aberdeen]	0.617	1.853 [1.262-2.721]	p = 0.002
	Work-life balance not extremely important [ref. Extremely important]	0.421	1.524 [1.111-2.091]	p = 0.009
Emergency medicine	Male gender [ref. Female]	0.647	1.910 [1.429-2.553]	p ≤ 0.001
General practice
	Country of birth other [ref. Scotland]	−0.837	0.433 [0.256-0.732]	p = 0.002
	Edinburgh [ref. Aberdeen]	−0.577	0.562 [0.366-0.861]	p = 0.008
	Male gender [ref. Female]	−0.531	0.588 [0.426-0.812]	p = 0.001
	Intellect not extremely important [ref. Extremely important]	0.970	2.638 [1.885-3.692]	p ≤ 0.001
	Work-life balance not extremely important [ref. Extremely important]	−1.531	0.216 [0.154-0.303]	p ≤ 0.001
Medical specialities	Country of birth other [ref. Scotland]	0.672	1.957 [1.195-3.207]	p = 0.008
Surgical specialities	Male gender [ref. Female]	1.191	3.291 [2.372-4.568]	p ≤ 0.001
	Other ethnicity [ref. White]	0.677	1.968 [1.190-3.255]	p = 0.008
	Work-life balance not extremely important [ref. Extremely important]	0.823	2.278 [1.613-3.216]	p ≤ 0.001
Obstetrics & gynaecology	Male gender [ref. Female]	−1.561	.210 [0.133-0.332]	p ≤ 0.001
Paediatrics
Paediatrics	Male gender [ref. Female]	−0.853	0.426 [0.295-0.616]	p ≤ 0.001
Diagnostics	Edinburgh [ref. Aberdeen]	−1.109	0.330 [0.155-0.703]	p = 0.004

odds ratio; 95% CI = 95% confidence interval.
See Additional file 1 for on-line supplementary versions of Tables 3 and 4, showing odds ratios for all the predictors in each specialty.