Dermatology interest amongst medical graduates -A cross-sectional study.

Abstract

Aim: There are a wide array of potential career pathways for medical students and pre-vocational doctors. We aimed to analyse career interest in dermatology and explore dermatology interest correlation with other medical specialties. Method(s): Incoming interns at Monash Health, a large tertiary multi-site hospital network in Melbourne, Australia, were asked to complete a career interest questionnaire. Participants were asked to rank their interest in 47 medical specialties using a Likert Scale (1-5, where 3 = neutral/ indifferent). Likert scale responses for different specialities were compared to generate a Pearson's R coefficient. Result(s): 123/124 (99.2%) of incoming interns participated in the study. The mean age was 24.39 (SD = 2.14). The overall mean specialty desirability was 2.61, suggesting that on average, more specialties were deemed undesirable by respondents. Although dermatology (2.88) had higher interest than the mean, more students rated dermatology as an undesirable career pathway. 41 (33.3%) interns had low interest (1 or 2 on Likert Scale) in pursuing dermatology, whereas 37 (30.1%) students had high (4 or 5 on Likert scale) interest. Interest in dermatology was significantly correlated with interest in Immunology and Allergy (R = 0.997), Public Health (R = 0.993), Occupational and Environmental Medicine (R = 0.987), Endocrinology (R = 0.984), and Rheumatology (R = 0.976). Conversely, interns interested in dermatology were least interested in Intensive Care Medicine (R = -0.590), Neurosurgery (R = -0.395), ENT (R = -0.331), General Surgery (-0.252) and Emergency Medicine (R = -0.059). Conclusion(s): We found that up to 30% of early career doctors were interested in pursuing a career in dermatology. Interest in dermatology overlaps with interest in rheumatology, public health, occupational medicine and endocrinology, but was least likely to overlap with critical care and surgery.