ArticleBMC medical education2020
Medical students' perspectives on earning opportunities of self-employed physicians - realistic and relevant for the process of career choice?
Article in BMC medical education, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Study on the Current Situation and Factors Influencing the General Practice Ability of Clinical Undergraduate Students in China.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Does examining job market awareness among medical students provide insight into the specialty selection process?Annals of medicine · 2023Article
- Workshop with medical students on physicians' earning opportunities, workload and job satisfaction increases the attractiveness of working self-employed and working in general practice.BMC medical education · 2022Article
- Earning opportunities and informal payment as influencing factors in medical students' speciality choice.BMC family practice · 2021Article
- Influence of Selected Environmental Factors on the Business Type of Dentist's Practice in Germany: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Process With an Analytical Hierarchy Process.Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financingArticle
- Location Factors Impact the Career Choice of German Dental Practitioners - An Empirical Analytical Approach to Multi-Criteria Decision-Making.Health services research and managerial epidemiologyArticle
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSeveral studies report a substantial impact of financial considerations on the process of specialty choice and the willingness to establish one's own practice. In Germany, reliable information on self-employed physicians' earning opportunities is basically available, but not easily accessible and understandable for medical students. Misperceptions might contribute to recruitment problems in some fields, particularly in general practice. In order to identify a possible need for action, we investigated current German medical students' level of information regarding future earnings, and whether net earnings of general practitioners and other physicians working self-employed are estimated realistically. Additionally, we explored students' self-assessments regarding the extent of the impact of expected earnings on their personal career choice process.
methodsWe conducted a cross-sectional questionnaire survey among fourth year (of six) medical students at one medical school (Leipzig). The participants estimated the net earnings of different physicians working self-employed. These estimations were compared with actual earnings data derived from a large German practice panel.
resultsResponse rate was 73.6% (231/314). The participants' mean age was 24.9 years and 59.1% were women. On a 10-point scale ranging from 1 = 'no influence' to 10='very big influence', 92.6% of the participants described at least some (≥2) influence of earning expectations on their career choice process, and 66.2% stated this influence to be 5 or higher. Every fourth student (26.4%) would rather or definitely reject a certain specialty because of expected low earning opportunities. While 60.4% had already thought about future earnings, only 26.8% had obtained concrete information. Compared with the data derived from the practice panel, the participants substantially underestimated the earning opportunities in self-employed settings, including general practice (median: 4500 vs. 6417€). However, depending on the single estimations, between 87.7 and 95.6% of the students stated they were 'rather uncertain' or 'very uncertain' regarding their estimations.
conclusionsDespite confirming a relevant impact of financial considerations on career choice, German fourth year medical students are not well informed about earning opportunities in self-employed settings. Providing easily understandable information could enhance transparency and might help students to consider financial issues of career choice on a realistic basis.
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