Abstract
Objective
To determine the factors that influence Pediatric residents to pursue a subspecialty career and establish their choice of future workplace.
Methods
The present questionnaire based study was conducted during a National level pediatric post graduate exam refresher course in Chennai, India and involved Pediatric residents from all parts of India. Datas was analysed with the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS, version 18.0).
Results
Seventy five respondents participated in the study. Eighty-nine percent of the female students reported that marriage has an influence on whether or not to do sub specialisation and their choice of it while 92% of the male students found it irrelevant. Fifty-one (male – 75%, female – 58%) students pragmatically cited “interest in the subject Pediatrics” when asked for the reason choosing Pediatrics as their future career. Neonatology was the most chosen speciality followed by Critical Care and Cardiology. When asked to indicate the most important factors that is likely to influence their decision whether or not to pursue sub speciality program, the largest proportion of students identified “financial reasons” (31; 41%) followed by “job opportunities” (16; 21%).
Conclusions
Pediatric residents should compulsorily be exposed to all subspecialties during their post-graduation. Adequate career guiding and exposure to various subspecialties will make the residents pursue subjects like Pediatric Nephrology, Hemato-oncology, Developmental Pediatrics and Hepatology which have less takers.
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Contributions
LMS: Helped in study design, revised the manuscript, helped in review of literature; JS: Conceptualized and designed the study, critically reviewed the manuscript; MR: Collected the data and drafted the manuscript; RK: Helped in data entering; PV: Supervised the manuscript; LK: Helped in data analysis. All authors approved the manuscript. JS will act as guarantor for the paper.
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Sneha, L.M., Ravindran, M., Kumar, R. et al. Indian Pediatric Postgraduate’s Perspective on Future Career Intentions. Indian J Pediatr 84, 183–187 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12098-016-2268-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12098-016-2268-y