Search

The changed circumstances of medical work, raises the question of how socio-economic changes over the last few decades has affected the professional socialisation of medical students. This paper explores the career choice motivations of medical students, as well as some characteristics of the process of making that choice and their effects on professional socialisation. The study was carried out with a self-administered questionnaire with 503 students in general medicine, randomly selected from two Hungarian Medical Schools. More than half of the students contemplated becoming a doctor as early as in their childhood. Their final decision was typically made in high school. Significant differences can be demonstrated in professional socialisation between those individuals identifying with the profession in early childhood and others turning to the profession later. Altruistic motivations were the most significant career choice reasons. In conclusions, the medical career choice must have deeper roots, yielding to an evolutionary psychological analysis as well, one aspect of which is altruism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Effective management and prevention of widespread burnout among medical students in Hungary require thorough understanding of its relations to coping strategies, which lacks sufficient data., Aim: To explore the prevalence of burnout and its relations to coping strategies among medical students., Method: Cross-sectional study with 292 participants. Burnout was assessed by the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey. Coping strategies were evaluated by the Folkman-Lazarus Ways of Coping Questionnaire and questions about health-maintenance behaviours. Associations between burnout and coping strategies were explored with linear regression analyses., Results: The prevalence of high-level burnout was 25-56%. Both problem-focused coping and support-seeking were protective factors of exhaustion and cynicism, however, they predicted reduced personal accomplishment. Emotion-focused coping predicted exhaustion and cynicism and correlated negatively with reduced personal accomplishment. Health-maintenance behaviours were protective factors for exhaustion and predicted reduced personal accomplishment., Conclusions: Deployment of coping strategies that target the most prevalent burnout dimension may improve effective management of burnout.