Future career plans of Malawian medical students: a cross-sectional survey

Human Resources for Health

Mwapatsa Mipando²  Tim Bartley³  Kate L Mandeville¹ 

[1] Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 15–17 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SH, United Kingdom;Department of Physiology, Malawi College of Medicine, Chichiri, Blantyre 3, Malawi;Department of Physics, Imperial College London, Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom

关键词: Malawi;    Migration;    Medical education;    Physicians;    Human resources for health;   

Others  :  822675
DOI  :  10.1186/1478-4491-10-29

 received in 2011-11-29, accepted in 2012-08-09,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Malawi has one of the lowest physician densities in the world, at 1.1 doctors per 100,000 population. Undergraduate training of doctors at the national medical school has increased considerably in recent years with donor support. However, qualified doctors continue to leave the public sector in order to work or train abroad. We explored the postgraduate plans of current medical students, and the extent to which this is influenced by their background.

Methods

A self-administered questionnaire was developed after discussion with students and senior staff. This included questions on background characteristics, education before medical school, and future career plans. This was distributed to all medical and premedical students on campus over 1 week and collected by an independent researcher. One reminder visit was made to each class. Chi-squared tests were performed to investigate the relationship of student characteristics with future career plans.

Results

One hundred and forty-nine students completed the questionnaire out of a student body of 312, a response rate of 48%. When questioned on their plans for after graduation, 49.0% of students plan to stay in Malawi. However, 38.9% plan to leave Malawi immediately. Medical students who completed a ‘premedical’ foundation year at the medical school were significantly more likely to have immediate plans to stay in Malawi compared to those who completed A-levels, an advanced school-leaving qualification (P = 0.037). Current premedical students were slightly more likely to have immediate plans to work or train in Malawi compared to medical students (P = 0.049). However, a trend test across all the years was not significant. When asked about future plans, nearly half of students intend to work or train outside Malawi.

Conclusions

The majority of respondents plan to leave Malawi in the future. The effectiveness of the substantial upscaling of medical education in Malawi may be diminished unless more medical students plan to work in Malawi after graduation.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Mandeville et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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