Catalan medical students’ predisposition to specialize in emergency medicine

Coll-Vinent Puig B, Torres S, Sánchez Sánchez A, Miró N, Sánchez M, Miró O

Background and objective: Emergency medicine is in the process of becoming

recognized as a specialty for primary residency training in Spain. However, the

predisposition of future doctors to specialize in this area is unknown since students have

never been asked to express their opinions. Therefore, we sought to discover medical

students’ attitudes toward specialization in emergency medicine.

Methods: Anonymous survey of students engaged in first- and second-cycle university

study of medicine in Catalonia. We recorded demographic data and asked students to

indicate their prior theoretical or practical contact with emergency medicine, their

intention to enter into such contact, and their intention to choose residency training in

emergency medicine if that specialty were available among the range of possibilities. The

relations between demographic factors and students’ intentions, as the dependent

variables, were then analyzed.

Results: A total of 171 students at the University of Barcelona, the Autonomous

University of Barcelona, the University of Lleida, and the Rovira i Virgili University

responded. Residency training in emergency medicine was the first choice for 2.4% of

the students; 52.1% included emergency medicine among their possible choices for

residency training. Emergency medicine was among the top 3 choices for 43.3% when

students were asked to rank residencies in internal medicine, family practice, intensive

care medicine, orthopedic and trauma surgery, cardiology, and general and digestive

tract surgery. A course in emergency medicine had been taken or would be taken by

82.2%, and 94.7% had practical experience in emergency medicine or planned to

obtain such practice. The only variable associated with expressing an interest in

emergency medicine was having a doctor in the family.

Conclusions: Over half the surveyed students of medicine in Catalonia include

emergency medicine among the residency training courses they might choose. The

students’ preferences bear little relation to demographic characteristics or university.

Coll-Vinent Puig B, Miró N, Miró O, Sánchez M, Sánchez Sánchez A, Torres S