Chasing a Postgraduate Degree in Ophthalmology: The Medical Intern’s Perspective
1034-1037
Correspondence
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Background: There is a dearth of studies on career intensions of interns in India in general and Ophthalmology in particular. The exposure in ophthalmology as an undergraduate trainee as well as an intern is lesser in comparison with other major subjects like medicine and surgery. As a result their understanding of the specialty as a career option could be inadequate and biased. The results of this study could be used to assess the need of incorporating career guidance in ophthalmology during internship.
Aim: To study the medical interns’ perspective of Ophthalmology as a career and to analyze the factors that might influence their decision.
Methods and Material: All interns undergoing compulsory rotatory internship in a medical college in Dakshina Kannada were included in the prospective, questionnaire based study, conducted from September to December 2010. Summary statistics are generated using MS Excel, and most are presented as frequencies and percentages. Chi square /and Fisher’s exact test of significance was used wherever applicable and the significance is reported at 5% level.
Observation: Most respondents (33.9%) had ophthalmology as their third choice for pursuing post graduation. There was no significant gender preference (p=0.623) for the branch. 41.5% (37) said that they would not take up ophthalmology because they felt they lacked skill / fine motor co-ordination in activities. 57.3% (51) would opt for this specialty because there was scope for more family time.56.1% (50) would not want to take it up because there was a lot of dependence on equipment for diagnosis.
Conclusions: Ophthalmology is amongst the top five preferred branches for specialization. It is most preferred for its perceived controllable lifestyle. Perceived lack of inherent skill was an important deterring factor. Incorporation of career counseling and hand-eye coordination tests during internship will help dispel myths about the speciality and aid decision making .