First-Year Pharmacy Students’ Views on Their Chosen Professional Career

Abstract

Objective. To investigate what factors influenced students to study pharmacy and determine in which sector they hoped to gain employment, both in the short and longer term. Methods. First-year pharmacy students (n5124) were invited to complete a paper-based, selfadministered questionnaire consisting of 4 sections. Descriptive statistics and nonparametric tests were conducted. Results. One hundred (96.8% response rate) students completed the questionnaire (22.5% male; 77.5% female). Key influential factors for choosing pharmacy included: enjoyment of science at school, a desire to improve people's health and wellbeing, and to work in health care. Career aspirations were to work in a hospital or in community practice rather than in industry or academia. Conclusions. Students choose pharmacy as a career primarily for altruistic and clinical reasons. This research provides information for pharmacy schools about the career aspirations of students and data from future pharmacists is potentially helpful to pharmacy professional organizations and potential employers.

Final-year pharmacy undergraduate students’ career intention and its influencing factors: a questionnaire study in northwest China

“…This result echoed those of other studies which showed that interest or motivation was one of the strongest reasons for students to develop a career intention for pharmacy-related profession [ 10 ], which could be viewed as an externalization of occupational value. However, pharmacy students in northwest China seemed to primarily consider intrinsic needs, which was distinct from the views that asserted Asian students or students of Asian origin value economic returns more than intrinsic factors [ 5 ]. Moreover, this result was different from the study in Japan, where pharmacy students ranked development opportunities as the most important factor [ 16 ].…”

“…There have been a series of studies concerning pharmacy students’ inclination to pursue specific careers, career intention, and the dynamics of the formation of career intentions among students in BPharm and PharmD programmes. These studies were mainly conducted in North America (USA [ 3 ]), Europe (the UK [ 4 , 5 ], Poland [ 6 ]), Africa (Ethiopia [ 7 ], Nigeria [ 8 ], Sierra Leone [ 9 ]), Oceania (Australia [ 10 ], New Zealand [ 11 ]), the Middle East (Kuwait [ 12 ], Jordan [ 13 ]), Southeast Asia (Malaysia [ 14 ]), and East Asia (Korea [ 15 ], Japan [ 16 ]). In general, these studies showed that pharmacy students’ career intentions were influenced by a variety of factors, which could be generally categorised as intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, interpersonal factors, and professional capacity or self-awareness of one’s own professional capacity.…”

“…However, differences have also been observed among different regions in the world. For instance, studies have shown that students of Asian origin or who were educated in Asia tended to prioritise economic earnings and social status, or the potentials, which might be explained by cultural priorities [ 5 , 17 , 18 ]. There are also differences in the healthcare systems and labour markets for health workers among countries.…”

Factors influencing choice of career: A comparative study among medical, dental and pharmacy students in a private university in Malaysia

“…This may suggest that pharmacy students' family members might not have a pharmacy background or they do not show a high preference for pharmacy as a career choice. Inequalities in wages and salaries globally (Rao & Indla, 2010;Hanna et al, 2016) and in Malaysia (Hasan et al, 2010;Manan et al, 2015;) for pharmacists may have discouraged families/parents from preferring pharmacy over medicine and dentistry.…”

“…There is a general perception among the public that the medical profession has widespread popularity and respect compared to other professions (James et al, 2018). The literature has shown that 'personal fulfilment', 'salary', 'abilities to help patients', 'location of job', 'selfemployment', 'interest in science', and 'desire to be useful to society' were the factors that influenced students to choose pharmacy as their career (Bardick et al, 2006;Anderson et al, 2008;Savage et al, 2009;Keshishian et al, 2010;Abdelhadi et al, 2014;Hanna et al, 2016;Alhaddad, 2018). It was also reported that some pharmacy students' progress to healthcare professions outside of pharmacy after completing their studies, citing 'the need for more money' or 'personal reasons' (Ubaka et al, 2013).…”