title: Career choices for public health: cohort studies of graduates from UK medical schools.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The aim of this paper is to describe UK-trained doctors' early intentions about seeking careers in public health and their eventual speciality destinations.
  
  
  METHODS
  Analysis of longitudinal studies of medical graduates from all UK medical schools in selected year-of-qualification cohorts from 1974 to 2008; data collected by postal questionnaires at various times after qualifying; and selection, for this paper, of doctors who expressed an early preference for a career in public health and/or who eventually practised in it.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of all doctors eventually practising in public health, for whom we had early choices, public health had been the unreserved first choice of 8% (10/125) in their first post-qualification year, 27% (33/122) in their third year and 59% (51/86) in their fifth year. Including first choices for public health 'tied' with an equal preference for a different speciality, and doctors' second and third choices for public health, 19% (24/125) of practising public health doctors had considered public health as a possible career in their first post-graduation year, 41% (50/122) in the third and 83% (71/86) in the fifth year.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Comparisons with other specialities show that doctors in public health chose their speciality relatively late after qualification.
authors.affiliation: Unit of Health-Care Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK. michael.goldacre@dph.ox.ac.uk
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Goldacre
authors.forename: Louise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Laxton
authors.forename: Trevor W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Lambert
authors.forename: Premila
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Webster
mesh_terms: D002321:Career Choice; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D011634:Public Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D006113:United Kingdom