School of International Education, Xuzhou Medical University, No.209 of Tongshan Road, Yunlong District, 221004, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China.
School of Education, The University of Queensland, 4072, Brisbane, Australia.
BMC Med Educ. 2023 Mar 15;23(1):158. doi: 10.1186/s12909-023-04123-5.
This study explored the specialty preferences of China-educated international medical students (IMSs), who are mainly from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and constitute a potential medical workforce both for their home countries and foreign countries, and the influence of migration intentions on their specialty preferences.
A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey was conducted at 5 universities in China. The questionnaire link was distributed electronically among the IMSs at the 5 universities via emails. The questionnaire enquired IMSs' demographic information, migration intentions and their specialty preferences. The Chi-square test was applied to determine the influence of the respondent's gender, intention to practise in the home country and intention to practise in a high-income country on their specialty choices. The Chi-square test was also applied to determine the influence of the respondent's gender, year of study and country of origin on their preferences for generalist-orientated or non-generalist orientated specialties.
Altogether, 452 IMSs returned their responses, yielding a response rate of 64.1%. Approximately half of the IMSs planned to not return to their home country. The most selected specialty was general surgery and the least selected specialty was physical medicine and rehabilitation. No significant differences were evident in most specialty preferences between those who intended to return home and those who intended to stay abroad. Among the IMSs having intentions of returning to their home country, male students tended to choose a generalist-orientated specialty, while female students tended to choose a non-generalist-orientated specialty.
China-educated IMSs could play important roles in the primary care services as well as other shortage specialties both for their home countries or foreign countries. Therefore, it is recommended that governments in these countries plan migration and recruitment policies that cater for these studying-abroad medical students from LMICs, especially in this challenging time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
本研究探讨了中国医学留学生（IMS）的专业偏好，他们主要来自中低收入国家（LMICs），是其本国和外国潜在的医疗劳动力。本研究还探讨了移民意向对他们专业偏好的影响。
本研究采用横断面问卷调查的方法，在中国的 5 所大学进行。通过电子邮件向这 5 所大学的 IMS 发放电子问卷链接。问卷询问了 IMS 的人口统计学信息、移民意向及其专业偏好。采用卡方检验来确定被调查者的性别、回国执业意向和去高收入国家执业意向对其专业选择的影响。同时，卡方检验也被用来确定被调查者的性别、学习年限和原籍国对其选择普通科或非普通科专业的影响。
共有 452 名 IMS 回复了问卷，应答率为 64.1%。大约一半的 IMS 计划不返回原籍国。选择最多的专业是普通外科，选择最少的专业是物理医学与康复。那些打算回国的人和那些打算留在国外的人在大多数专业偏好上没有明显差异。在那些打算回国的 IMS 中，男性学生倾向于选择普通科专业，而女性学生倾向于选择非普通科专业。
中国医学留学生在原籍国或外国的初级保健服务以及其他短缺专业中可以发挥重要作用。因此，建议这些国家的政府制定移民和招聘政策，以满足来自 LMICs 的留学生的需求，尤其是在 COVID-19 大流行期间这个充满挑战的时期。
