Why People Apply to Medical School in Iraq?

Abstract

Background:The motivations behind why people choose to study medicine in Iraqi medical schools are unknown. Such information could help school pupils to make more informed career decisions and assist medical schools in enhancing the student selection process.Aims:To investigate why people choose to study medicine in Iraq.Subjects and methods:The first-year students admitted on the academic year 2015-2016 to Baghdad College of Medicine, University of Baghdad, were invited to complete a structured questionnaire, which was administered through the college electronic education portal. The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 21 software.Results:A total of 152 (50% response rate) students responded. Women constituted 69.1% of respondents. Most students (61.8%) had made their choice by themselves without family pressure. The most frequent reasons that affected this choice were “humanitarian reasons and a wish to provide help to others” as well as “childhood dream,” “positive community appraisal of doctors,” and “ready availability of work for physicians.” About three-quarters (73.6%) of the students made some inquiry about medical school before making their choice, and the people asked were most frequently a medical student or a doctor. Information provided by the consulted parties was regarded as satisfactory by 64.2% of the surveyed students, had a positive value in 47.2%, and affected their decision in 34.9%. The highest proportion (42.2%) of the study sample was thinking about studying medicine since primary school. In addition, students with personal preference made their choice at a significantly younger age.Conclusions:Reasons to apply for medical schools in Iraq are similar to those in many countries. Most of the students who inquired about studying medicine had not contacted the medical school itself.

Factors affecting career choice of students in a medical faculty

“…In the literature, there are studies with results that family influence was higher. For example, families were effective in their children's choice of medical faculty with a rate of 38.2% in the study by Al Hemiary et al [23] and with a rate of 87% in the study by Saad et al [24]. In countries where traditional values are effective, families can be more effective in career choice of their children.…”

I am Becoming a Doctor: Mine or Someone Else’s Will? Or Does it Even Matter? A Qualitative Investigation

“…Intrinsic Motivation (a) Parents or family expectation/pressure (Al-Hemiary, Al-Nuaimi, Al-Saffar, & Randall, 2017;Diwan, Minj, Chhari, & De Costa, 2013;Rashmi A Kusurkar, Croiset, Galindo-Garré, & Ten Cate, 2013;McHarg, Mattick, & Knight, 2007;Pruthi et al, 2013;Shankar, Singh, Gautam, & Dhaliwal, 2013) (b) Monetary gain (Crossley & Mubarik, 2002;Győrffy, Birkás, & Sándor, 2016;Heikkilä et al, 2015;Hyppölä et al, 1998;Rashmi A Kusurkar et al, 2013;McHarg et al, 2007;McHugh et al, 2011;Skatova & Ferguson, 2014) (c) Prestigious profession (Diwan et al, 2013;Girasek, Molnár, Eke, & Szócska, 2011;Győrffy et al, 2016;Heikkilä et al, 2015;Hyppölä et al, 1998;Khami, Murtomaa, Jafarian, Vehkalahti, & Virtanen, 2008;Rashmi A Kusurkar et al, 2013;Skatova & Ferguson, 2014) (d) Good academic results (Vaglum, Wiers-Fenssen, & Ekeberg, 1999) (e) Illness/death in the family (Győrffy et al, 2016;Hyppölä et al, 1998;McHarg et al, 2007) (f) Maintaining self-worth (Wouters, Croiset, Isik, & Kusurkar, 2017) (g) Career prospects (Ayuob, Bahumdain, AL-Najei, Khobrani, & El Deek, 2015;Crossley & Mubarik, 2002;Girasek et al, 2011;Győrffy et al, 2016;Heikkilä et al, 2015;Hyppölä et al, 1998;Pagnin et al, 2013;Skatova & Ferguson, 2014) (h) Altruism (desire to help people, giving back to society)…”

“…This suggests a cultural difference between the Eastern and Western countries. While family pressure is likely to be more common among medical students in Eastern countries (Al-Hemiary et al, 2017), Western studies discovered more genuine interests (Gąsiorowski et al, 2015;Millan et al, Figure 2. Categorising initial motivations for choosing the medical programme following the Self-Determination Theory 2005).…”

The Motivation of Preclinical Students to be A Doctor: A Turkish Perspective in the Private Educational Sector

“…However, very little is known about their interest to practice medicine1. In fact, choosing the type of undergraduate study may be the most critical challenge facing the high school students after passing the national pre-university or "the national Students Selection and Placement Center (OSYM) exam" 2,3 . Literature shows that choosing medicine as a career among students from different worldwide regions may share similar motivations such as demographic characteristics, prestige, income, faculty role model, substantial early interest, lifestyle, and curiosity in the specialty 1 .…”