"My future as a physician"--professional representations and their background among first-day medical students.
BACKGROUND
Professional representations orient students toward their future profession and influence their view of what things are important to learn.


OBJECTIVE
To analyze medical students' professional representations and their background.


METHODS
One hundred nine 1st-day medical students wrote an essay titled "My work and future as a physician in the 21st century" and filled in a questionnaire about their background. The essays were content analyzed to identify the dimensions of their professional representations.


RESULTS
Four dimensions of representations emerged: impersonal-personal, foreclosed-reflective, traditional-transformative, and idealistic-realistic. The professional representations were associated with the students' gender, previous experiences of working and studying, their sources of information about the medical profession, and the time of career choice.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study revealed different subgroups of medical students in view of their professional orientation. The relevance of this finding for the recruitment and educational practices of medical schools is discussed.
Niemi
Päivi M
PM
Department of Psychiatry, University of Turku, Finland, Kunnallissairaalantie 20, FIN-20700 Turku, Finland. paivi.niemi@utu.fi
Vainiomäki
Paula T
PT
Murto-Kangas
Mari
M
D000328:Adult; D002321:Career Choice; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D010819:Physician's Role / Q000523:psychology; D012649:Self Concept; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*