Opinion of Iranian Endocrinologists about Internal Medicine and Endocrinology

The aim of this study was to determine why Iranian endocrinologists choose endocrinology and to ascertain the advantages and limitations that they encounter.
A questionnaire including 3 open questions and one with 8 choices was sent to 157 endocrinologists, whose email was available in the list of the Iran Endocrine Society for analysis of responses to open questions.
Of the 157 endocrinologists, 81 (52%), - 42 females (52%) and 39 males (48%)- responded. Eighty-one percent wrote back saying they had selected internal medicine as a specialty because it is “the basic scientific principles of medicine”. Answers to the question “Why did you choose endocrinology?” were: “It has a constant process of thinking in diagnosis and treatment (69%), systematic and intellectual decision making (62%), the influence of a role model-a distinguished mentor (59%), interaction with other systems and organs (55%), motivation and the availability of updated data (55%)”. Endocrinologists believed that the major limitations of this subspecialty to be: “Excessive dependence on accurate laboratory procedures, not always available (62%) and lower income, as compared to other medical specialties (53%)”.
This study shows that despite the lower income, the rewards of choosing endocrinology, in particular its research and scientific evidence-based process of thinking, are major reasons why physicians choose this subspecialty. Availability of and accessibility to well-facilitated laboratories and higher incomes could minimize the challenges faced by physician endocrinologists.