Medical Career Choice

The choice for a medical career is a millenary issue. About 2,400 years ago, Hippocreates 'the father of Medicine' pointed out the necessary qualities for those who intended to choose medicine as a career. Many of such qualities are remarkably valid to date. In Ancient Greece, women were prohibited from practicing medicine, but today they are the majority in several countries. However, women still suffer discrimination within the medical hierarcy and fewer reach top academic positions. They face great difficulties to be admitted in some specialties; they make lower earnings than men and are distrusted by colleagues and patients. In order to approach such issues, the author makes an extensive bibliographic review, which embodies the medical career history and vocational theories. Then he proposes a methodology for studying the issue and presents the results of a survey made with students in a Brazilian medicine school. According to Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, Paulo Correa Vaz de Arruda, 'the experience the author acquired over more than two decades by providing psychological assistance to medical students added to his natural gifts and has resulted in an accurate survey from the scientific viewpoint, which is unique in several aspects, appropriately deep for the importance of the issue and, moreover, brave enough to deal with a problem which, to the majority of Medical Psychology exerpts, is the most intricate one in that discipline. The book is a valuable scientific compendium, which is now published to fill a gap in our area'.