ENT- a Dwindling Specialty Choice among the Medical Student at Undergraduate Level in a Developing Country
Keywords:
ENT specialty, under graduate teaching, post-graduation, career choicesAbstract
Objectives:
Document the frequency of ENT specialty choice being taken by third and fourth-year Medical students.
Introduction:
The field of ENT specialty is a very competitive field all over the world. The field of ENT gives a more controllable lifestyle as compared to General Surgery. Despite otolaryngology being an important specialty and being more flexible, with a controllable lifestyle; the importance given to it is decreasing all over the world in undergraduate teaching. In UK the time given to ENT teaching is 3.4 days of pre-clinical teaching plus 5.0 days of ENT departmental experience.
Materials & Methods:
This is a cross-sectional survey study. Answers were marked on a likert scale of 5; as strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree, strongly disagree.
Results:
Total of 167 students participated in the survey. Ninety-eight students in the third year and Sixty-nine students in the fourth year. For the question regarding taking up ENT as a career choice 13% strongly agreed. 20% agreed and 46% were not sure about this question.
Conclusion:
ENT is losing its ground as the most sought after choices in the post-graduation. This is evident even in the undergraduate level; the graduates are not sure whether they want to pick up ENT as their final career choice.
Downloads
References
Newton DA, Grayson MS, Thompson LF. The variable influence of lifestyle and income on medical students’ career specialty choices: data from two US medical schools, 1998-2004. Academic Med 2005; 80:809-14.
Collier E. Workplace warfare: Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y. http://www.careerfaqs.com.au/news/news-
and-views/workplace-warfare-baby-boomers-gen-xand-gen-y/ Last accessed:27 March 2016
Dorsey ER, Jarjoura D, Rutecki GR. Influence of controllable lifestyle on recent trends in specialty choice by us medical students. JAMA 2003; 290:1173-8.
Abdulghani HM, Al-Shaikh G, Alhujayri AK, Alohaideb NS, Alsaeed HA, Alshohayeb IS, et al.What determines the selection of undergraduate medical students to the specialty of their future careers?, Medical Teacher 2013; 35:25-30.
Rehman A, Rehman T, Shaikh MA, Yasmin H, Asif A, Kafil H. Pakistani medical students’ specialty preference and the influencing factors. J Pak Med Assoc 2011; 61:713-8.
Website:https://residency.wustl.edu/Choosing /SpecDesc/Pages/Otolaryngology.aspx Last accessed: 27 March 2016
Sing T. Pattern of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Diseases in Outpatient Clinic of a Malaysian hospital. Internet J Head and Neck Surgery 2006; p 1-4.
Powell J, Cooles FA, Carrie S, Paleri V. Is undergraduate medical education working for ENT surgery? A survey of UK medical school graduates J Laryngol Otol 2011; 125:896-905.
McCaffrey JC. Medical student selection of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery as a specialty: influences and attitudes. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2005; 133:825-30.
Hu A, Sardesai MG, Meyer TK. A need for otolaryngology education among primary care providers. Med Educ Online 2012; 17:17350.
Hara BS, Saywell RM, Zollinger TW, Smith CP, Burba JL, Stopperich DM. ENT experience in a family
medicine clerkship: is there enough?.Fam Med 2000; 32:691-5.
Aslam M, Ali A,Taj T, Badar N, Mirza W, Ammar A, et al. Specialty choices of medical students and house officers in Karachi, Pakistan. EMHJ 2011; 17:74-9.
Akhund S, shaikh ZA, Kolachi HB. Career related choices of medical students from an international medical college of Karachi, Pakistan. JLUMHS 2012; 11:180-4.
Shahab F, Hussain, Inayat A,Shahab A. Attitudes of medical students towards their career - perspective from Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa. J Pak Med Assoc 2013; 63:1017-20.
Lefevre JH, Roupret M, Kerneis S , Karila L. Career choices of medical students: a national survey of 1780 students. Med Edu 2010; 44:603-12.
Doshi J, Carrie S. A survey of undergraduate otolaryngology experience at Newcastle University Medical School J Laryngol Otol 2006; 120:770-3.
Campisi P, Asaria J, Brown D. Undergraduate otolaryngology education in Canadian medical schools. Laryngoscope 2008; 118:1941-50.
Luc E. Coffeng, Olle TH, Anouck JE. The influence of early clinical experiences on career preference of male and female medical students, Medical Teacher 2009; 31:323-6.
Takeda Y, Morio K, Snell L, Otaki J, Takahashi M, Takeda IK, et al. Characteristic profiles among students and junior doctors with specific career preferences BMC Med Edu 2013; 13:125.
Wright B, Scott I, Woloschuk W, Brenneis F.Career choice of new medical students at three Canadian universities: family medicine versus specialty medicine. JAMC 2004; 170:1920-4.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 sadaf zia, Muhammad Shuja Farrukh, Syeda Uzma Naqvi, Fatima Iqbal Hussain, Salman Matiullah Sheikh
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Articles published in the Journal of Dow University of Health Sciences are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/. This license permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium; provided the original work is properly cited and initial publication in this journal. 
