Student’s motivation to pursue a graduate-entry medicine degree programme

• Main Authors: Sonia Kumar, Rachel Browne, Jeffrey Wu, Simon Tso
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National University of Singapore 2021-01-01
• Series: The Asia Pacific Scholar
• Online Access: https://medicine.nus.edu.sg/taps/students-motivation-to-pursue-a-graduate-entry-medicine-degree-programme/

The decision to pursue medicine is a significant step for individuals, particularly those for whom this involves a career change. While medicine in the UK has traditionally been an undergraduate course, graduate-entry medicine (GEM) programmes were introduced in 2000 and offer an accelerated course for suitably qualified candidates with a Bachelor’s degree. Students have a variety of motivations for undertaking a GEM programme (Carter & Peile, 2007), and we herein explore the factors that influence this range of motivations. Literature suggests that students of GEM programmes can broadly be categorised into two groups: individuals who do not consider medicine when choosing their first degree, or individuals who selected a degree subject that would keep medicine open as a career (Sulong et al., 2014). Key motivating factors to pursue GEM include prior health service experience (as a patient or as a health professional), professional autonomy, and influence from others. The most frequently cited factor influencing the decision was a desire to help people (Sulong et al., 2014). Other literature suggests a lack of job satisfaction and limited career development opportunities are key factors drawing individuals away from their original career paths and into medicine. The other group includes individuals who had previously failed to gain entry to medical school at the undergraduate level, studying alternative subjects but maintaining a goal of studying medicine. These individuals have demonstrated motivation by completing a degree that was not their first choice, and this can continue throughout their medical studies. A comparison of Leicester Medical School GEM and undergraduate-entry medicine (UEM) students found higher general pass rates for GEM students with a biomedical science background when compared to their UEM peers (Carter & Peile, 2007).