Choice of Specialty and Attitude of Undergraduate Medical Interns towards Family Medicine

Abstract

Objective: to analyze the choice of specialty and attitude of undergraduate medical interns (umi) towards Family Medicine (fm) after pursuing a new educational model with an approach on the Primary care level. Methods: cross-sectional analytical study conducted from December 2018 to February 2019, 141 umi participated of the Vicente Guerrero General Regional Hospital No.1 of the Mexican Institute of Social Security. Subsequent to the year of development of a new modality of medical internship focused on the Primary care level, in which the rotation time in Family Medicine was increased from two to four months, the Attitude towards Family Medicine Questionnaire (afmq) was applied, which explores the attitude towards fm, opinion about rotation, and its choice as a specialty and associated factors. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed. Results: 98.6% had a good attitude towards fm (n=139), 34.5% chose it as a possible specialty option (n=38), only 3.5% chose it as the first choice (n=5); the main cause, fm provides comprehensive care (22.6%, n=32) and the reason for not choosing it was because they do not like fm (18.4%, n=26). The new rotation time was perceived as good by 48% (n=54); through logistic regression analysis, the student who liked rotation or practices per Family Medicine consultation is 6.7 times more likely to choose Family Medicine as a specialty option (ic 95%: 1.45-31.2). Conclusions: one year after the implementation of the new model with an approach to the Primary care level, most umi have a good attitude towards fm, however, it does not represent their first choice as a specialty; the qualities of the specialty are the main reasons to choose it, the internship time did not influence their choice.