To be or not to be?

I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to the authors of the study profiling students entering medical school.1 Having just graduated from medical school, I feel that this study adequately and accurately reflects the main issues that medical students contend with when considering family medicine as a possible career choice.

I especially appreciate the articulation of the “prestige” factor when deciding on family medicine. While there is the pressure to “apply for something better,” I feel that the type of students that make up medical classes these days is drastically different from those that populated classrooms even just a few years ago. Because the process of gaining admission to medical school is that much more competitive, it tends to single out pupils that thrive on competition, prestige, and high esteem, things that are well entrenched in the Canadian Resident Matching Service’s process for sub-specialty residencies.

I suggest that the selection process should somehow identify features that would predispose medical students to choose generalist specialties overall; some resilient element that persists despite over-represented exposure to subspecialty rotations during the clinical years. Admittedly, this would be a difficult task to undertake, but if we start with more family medicine–friendly students, in addition to all the other curriculum changes that need to occur (eg, family medicine rotations in urban centres as well as rural centres), then perhaps more FPs will make it out the other end.

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