Global health/marginalized groups

[jamessagan]

Dear current medical students:

 

Would anyone be able to tell me:

 

1) Approximately what percentage of medical students in your school plan to work full-time with marginalized (e.g., aboriginal) communities in Canada or with marginalized communities in developing countries?

 

2) The percentage that plan to work part time (say, half time) in such work?

 

I realize that the percentages will be approximate. I'd just appreciate it if I could get an idea.

 

Many thanks.

[Lactic Folly]

This sounds like a good potential research topic. Have you already done a literature search?

[bloh]

Dear current medical students:

 

Would anyone be able to tell me:

 

1) Approximately what percentage of medical students in your school plan to work full-time with marginalized (e.g., aboriginal) communities in Canada or with marginalized communities in developing countries?

 

2) The percentage that plan to work part time (say, half time) in such work?

 

I realize that the percentages will be approximate. I'd just appreciate it if I could get an idea.

 

Many thanks.

 

When you made this thread, have you considered at all as to how current medical students would be able to give you this information?

Did you envision some sort of magical box where we all put in our information voluntary in magical categories that just happen to come to us?

[jamessagan]

Hi there. Thanks for your replies.

 

In answer to Lactic Folly, yes, it does sound like a great research topic, doesn't it? I think it would be great to know how many med students plan to work in these areas, and then find out how many graduates actually do. I have tried to do searches, but have come up with very little. Although they don't answer my questions, the results from the National Physician Survey are very interesting (and easily accessible online: http://www.nationalphysiciansurvey.ca/nps/home-e.asp). One of the questions they asked in 2007 had to do with volunteering time as a physician.

 

My point, by the way, is not to do formal research. It's just to get a sense of things.

 

In answer to bloh, yes, I did try to consider how current medical students could give me this information: their impressions after hanging out with their fellow students for a while. I realize that no one is probably doing any serious data collection. I just wanted to get people's gut impression about their fellow students -- if you'd guess it's 1% or 10% or 90%. Or "somewhere between 10 and 30%".