Background: People have various reasons for choosing medicine as a career. We decided to carry out a questioner survey among students in Abia State University Uturu to find out the factors that influenced them to choose medicine as a career.

Materials and methods: A questionnaire– based study was carried out among clinical students of 400.500 and 600 levels. The information obtained was analyzed by simple impositions.

Results: There were 188 respondents. 106(56.4%).were males, while 82(43.6%) were females. The desire to save life was the strongest motivating factor in 150(79.8%), while peer pressure was the least motivating factor in 9(4.8%) of the study population. 49(26.1%) of the respondents strongly agree that economic reasons was their motivating factor. 122(64.9%) respondents strongly agree that interest in medicine was their motivating factor.

Conclusion: The desire to save life is the strongest motivating factor to choose medicine as a career, while peer pressure was the least motivating factor.

Keywords: motivation, study, medicine

Medicine is a noble profession which many people want to pursue for many reasons ranging from economic social and desire to help mankind. So many factors motivate people to choose medicine as a career.

Motivation is an internal state that arouses, directs and maintains and sustains goal–oriented behaviour.¹ In this questionnaire–based study we want to find what motivated a group of medical students to choose medicine as a career.

This was a questionnaire based population study. Questionnaires were distributed to three levels of clinical students in Abia State University, Uturu.

The data in the questionnaire included the following

1. The love of science
2. To save life
3. Sickness in childhood
4. Interest in medicine
5. Grew up in the midst of medical personnel
6. Social status
7. Economic reasons
8. Curiosity about human life
9. It permits learning
10. It is challenging
11. Job security
12. Close relative has an illness or died from an illness
13. Pressure from family members
14. Pressure from friends
15. Pressure from community
16. To be practical in life
17. Because there is no physician in my family community
18. Any other

Respondents were encouraged to choose any number of the above options that influenced their decision to study medicine. The possible responses to each of the questions above were:

1. Strongly agree.
2. Weakly agree.
3. Strongly disagree.
4. Weakly disagree.
5. I do not know.

The data was collated and analysed by manual calculations.

The data collected was represented in the table below (Table 1)

Key:

1. Strongly agree
2. Weakly agree
3. Strongly disagree
4. Weakly disagree
5. I do not know

A total of 188 students replied to the questionnaire (Table 2).

Majority of the respondents 150(79.8%). Strongly agree that the desire to save life was the motivating factor to choose medicine as a career. In 49(26.1%) of the respondents strongly agree that economic reasons was their motivating factor to choose medicine as a career. 122(64.9%) responders strongly agree that interest in medicine was their motivating factor. Community pressure in 3(6.92%) and peer pressure in 9(4.79%) were the least motivating factors.

Many factors motivate people in their choice of career. The factors range from economic, peer pressure, family pressure or sheer interest. According to Paul R kleingenna et al.¹ motivation is an internal state that arouses, directs and sustains goal oriented behaviour.

Educational psychologists² are interested in motivation because of the crucial role it plays in student learning. Motivation has several effects on how students learn and towards subject matter how they behave. It can:

1. Direct behavior towards a particular goal
2. Lead to increased effort and energy
3. Increase initiation of and persistence of activities
4. Enhance cognitive processing
5. Determine what consequences are reinforcing
6. Lead to improved performance

Students are not always motivated therefore they sometimes need situated motivation which is found in the environmental condition that the teacher creates. If teachers decide to extrinsically reward productive students’ behaviour they may find it difficult to extricate from that path. Consequently, student’s dependency on extrinsic rewards represents one of the greatest distractors from their rise in the class room.³

We have looked at the factors that motivated our students at Abia State University to choose medicine as a career. We found that most of our students 150(79.8%) had the desire to save life as the strongest motivating factor while peer pressure 9(4.8%) was the least motivating factor.

Similar work done by Thakur et al.³ among medical students in Nepal, India found out that what motivated 73% of these medical students to choose medicine as a career is to provide service to the sick and to use the medical facilities available in the country and lessen the number of sick people seeking help from faith healers.

Dr Ubah J of Ladoke University Oshogbo found almost all the students picked the option of life saving and sympathy for the sick, (98.8%) and 81 (97.6%) respectively.⁴ Various authors found out that the factors that influence the decisions to choose medicine as career are multiple ranging from individuals characteristics, perceived benefits and attractiveness of particular medicine speciality and factors associated with medical school curricula, such as experience of chosen speciality.^5–14

In comparison with dental students, medical students manifested a more professional attitude in which altruism and intellectual challenge constituted central motivating factors. By contrast, dental students demonstrated more of a commitment to personal and financial gain.¹⁵ Sharon et al.¹⁶ noted that research and publication by medical student in medical school are associated with a career in academic medicine. The desire to teach, conduct research, and the intellectual stimulation and challenge provided in academia may also persuade people to choose this career path. The influence of a role model or a mentor was reported by physicians to impact their decision making. Choosing medicine as a career Saadah Sulong et al.¹⁷ found that Ireland medical student were overwhelmingly motivated by desire to work with, and help, people, along with a desire to cure and prevent disease. Motivations to study medicine include family influence altruistic reasons and a variety of personal/social factors such as intellectual satisfaction, prestige and financial security and parental expectations from the study done by Professor Thong¹⁸ suggests that motivations to study medicine include family influence, altruistic reasons and a variety of personal/social factors such as intellectual satisfaction, prestige and financial security and parental expectations.^.

In this study the desire to save life is the strongest motivating factor to choose medicine as a career, while peer pressure was the least motivating factor. Most people that choose medicine as a carrier in life have a sincere desire to help mankind to alleviate suffering and to prolong life. Therefore they should be provided with an enabling environment to enhance as well as motivate their primary intrinsic factors.

We remain grateful to the almighty God who saw us through to the end of this research.

We are forever indebted to the medical students who responded to all our quetionnaires without whom it will be impossible to carry out this work.

I also wish to appreciate Eke–Otuka Uzochukwu for his efforts in making this article come through and Miss Chinonyerem Gloria Eleweke, we are forever grateful.

The author declares no conflict of interest.

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