Expected Economic Return of General Medicine and Medical Specialty Programs: Perspective of Medical Students

Any personal decision to invest in higher education requires evaluation of its economic return. This paper aimed to analyze the expected economic return of general medicine and medical specialty programs from the viewpoints of general medicine students.

This study was a descriptive, cross-sectional, applied study. Using Gorjesy & Morgan table, a total of 208 general medicine students were selected from Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 2016. The internal rate of return (IRR) method was applied to evaluate the investment in general medicine and medical specialty programs. Data collection tool was a questionnaire designed according to Hackman & Oldham’s standard job motivation questionnaire with the items adjusted for general medicine and medical specialty programs. The content validity and repeatable reliability were confirmed by experts’ opinion and inter-cluster correlation coefficient (r=0.82) respectively. Data were analyzed in Stata 12.

The students believed that the general medicine and medical specialty programs had higher expected return in comparison to competing fields with medical specialties having the greatest expected return among all of the assessed fields of study. The expected return of general medicine and medical specialty programs was higher for the male students.

Medical students showed an economically oriented behavior in choosing their field of study. They considered their expected economic evaluations in deciding to continue their studies in general medicine and medical specialty programs. Thus, economic components of the future job were one of the factors of studying in medical fields.