From: The temporal decline of idealism in two cohorts of medical students at one institution
Factor (% of variance) | Items (Component score) (n = 780^) |
---|---|
How important are the following factors in considering your career in medicine? | |
Idealism in medicine (21.023) | Desire to serve my community (0.805) |
Opportunity to help patients who are socially disadvantaged (0.753) | |
Opportunities to make a difference in people’s lives (0.732) | |
Desire to do primary care (0.519) | |
Employment and job security (20.455) | Availability of jobs (0.897) |
Job security (0.883) | |
Status and income (14.153) | Status of physicians (0.881) |
High income potential (0.676) | |
Career satisfaction (12.239) | Intellectual climate (0.725) |
Job satisfaction (0.536) | |
How important are the following factors in considering your choice for a specialty? | |
Prestige and income (19.883) | Prestige of the specialty I am considering (0.736) |
Competitiveness of the specialty (0.721) | |
Options for fellowship training associated with the specialty (0.645) | |
Income expectations for the specialty (0.542) | |
Opportunities to do research in this specialty (0.492) | |
Lifestyle and family (17.080) | The lifestyle of the specialty I am considering (0.826) |
Ability to balance my work life with my family responsibilities (0.799) | |
Length of residency training associated with the specialty (0.569) | |
Idealism and educational experience (11.772) | Opportunities to provide care to underserved populations (0.808) |
Career workshops and courses (0.570) | |
Debt over interest in content (10.498) | Amount of education debt I have (0.532) |
Content of the specialty (-0.794) | |
Attitudes toward primary care | |
Value of primary care skills (19.239) | Medical interviewing is a fundamental tool for all medical students to learn (0.827) |
It is essential that medical students learn how to best communicate with patients (0.738) | |
Preventative care knowledge is essential for all medical students to learn (0.700) | |
Primary care knowledge is useful for all medical students (0.694) | |
Negative/antagonistic view of primary care (13.139) | Primary care doctors mostly manage chronic health problems (0.750) |
It is impossible to be an expert in such a wide field as primary care (0.750) | |
I am more interested in learning the skills required for my chosen specialty rather than a general set of clinical practice skills (0.550) | |
Considering primary care career (11.446) | I would like to become a primary care doctor in the future (0.702) |
A primary care doctor is clinically competent to provide most of the health care an individual may require (0.558) | |
Primary care should be a patient’s first contact with the health care system (0.482) | |
Primary care is not very intellectually stimulating (-0.558) | |
Negative/sympathetic view of primary care (10.675) | Primary care doctors are poorly valued by the rest of the medical profession (0.829) |
Primary care doctors have a large work overload (0.761) |