Analyzing the motivation of Tabriz medical and dentistry entrance students from entring to their study field, 2010

Abstract

Career choice is one of the most important decision making in whole life. Choosing dental and medical job should be accomplished with more precise considerations, because prior studies pointed that there is a little chance of changing job for dental and medical students.This study was carried out to assess dental and medical first year students' motivations to enter dental and medical profession in Tabriz university of medical sicences in year 2012. In addition, motivation factors of male and female students were compared. Methods & Materials: In this desciriptive cross-sectional study in 2012,104 students (52dental students-52 medical students) were involved. A questionnaire which included information on students demography and motive rankings was administered. Nine dimensions were covered in the questionnaire including income, social status, independency, service to people, manual working with hands, parents advice, liking medical and dental siences, adjusting work time and relation with people. The results were analysed using spss and Mann-Whitney U test. Results: 55.8% of medical students and 51.9% of dental students was female. Most important motives for choosing dentistry and medicine were social status. parent advising, relation with people and service to people were less important motives of choosing dentistry among studied dental students. Social status, income and adjusting work time were more important for males in choosing dentistry for their future major. income was second important motive for medical students. manual working with hand and service to people were the less important motives of medical students. The factor of service to people was more important among female medical students. Disscusion and conclusion: Dentistry and medical carriers are having good social status yet and students of medical and dental students are choosing their field of study for gaining more social respect. Female students are in the majority in both dentistry and medicine. The differences between the motivations of choosing the different areas of study possibly related to the different nature of these two academic field. The reasons and motives of choosing dentistry and medicine among the students of medical sciences of Tabriz are not different from other parts of the world.