Formation of a conscious choice of a career in medicine in school children and junior medical university students

Abstract

The important challenge facing modern higher medical education is to ensure its continuity at all learning stages: school, university, postgraduate course. A conscious choice of a career is formed gradually, with active contribution from both – the individual under consideration and the immediate circle. Therefore, relying on selfmotivation in students in view of the knowledge acquisition, it is necessary to create favorable external conditions to make an earlier decision as regards the career choice of becoming a doctor. The relevance of this research study is determined by the demand of pedagogics and higher professional education for further development and improvement in theoretical and methodological understanding of the substance and scope of the modern medical
education, the system and model of its implementation, as well as the need for the new type of doctors as regards their qualities to practice clinical medicine. This paper presents and discusses the summary of results of the anonymous and voluntary survey conducted among the schoolchildren of grades 7 through 11 (151 people) and students of year 1 and 2 studying at Department of Medicine at St. Petersburg State University (118 people) in order to identify to what extent the awareness of attitudes towards the choice of a career in medicine changes among the students of different levels, and to analyse their keen, motivated and effective attitude towards the decision-making in view of choosing their future profession. The impartial assessment of aspirations and opportunities represents, in fact, the first and most important stage in the development of a young person as a future specialist. This study shows that the academic competitions for schoolchildren in medicine as one of the learning forms plays an important role in
stimulating cognitive activity and awareness of choosing this profession. It is proved, that the design of higher medical education metasystem in course of the learning process at university includes the elaboration of the initial stage of medical education, i.e. at the pre-university stage.