Attitudes toward the medical career: findings from the Alpha Omega Alpha survey of college and university undergraduates.

In 1989, when the number of applicants to medical schools had been comparatively low for several years, trustees of Alpha Omega Alpha commissioned Louis Harris and Associates to conduct a survey to investigate the attitudes that led college undergraduates toward or away from choosing medical careers. A total of 1,780 college students and 93 premedical advisors from 100 U.S. schools were interviewed in early 1990. The students were in three groups: a national cross-section of 1,003 undergraduates who were not applicants to medical school; 500 medical school applicants for the entering class of 1990; and 277 students who had taken the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), were qualified for admission, but had not applied. The authors acknowledge that the reasons that the medical school applicant pool was so low in the late 1980s and has fluctuated so widely in the last two decades are only partly understood. The data gathered indicate that job satisfaction was an extremely important factor in career choice for high percentages of students in all the groups surveyed; that 77% of all the students had never seriously considered applying to medical school; and that 70% saw no attraction in becoming a physician. Data on other problems that many of the students saw in medical education and the practice of medicine are reviewed, the role of premedical advisors is examined, and the advisors' views on what makes a promising applicant are described. Regarding the students who took the MCAT exam but did not apply to medical school, 81% indicated that they eventually planned to or were likely to apply.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)