Do medical students have a vocation for the profession? A case study in a public university

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. Introduction: A vocation is predisposition of an person to enter a certain profession or occupation, or to develop skills in certain arts; vocation among medical students is important to reducing their rates of leaving their studies in a subject where training is both lengthy and expensive. Objective: To evaluate the vocational orientation of students admitted to the Faculty of Medicine at Agostinho Neto University in 2013 and assess whether there is any correlation between student achievement during the selection process and students vocation. Methods: an observational, cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on the vocational orientation of medical students; the study population consisted of all students admitted in 2013. Results: Only 19.4% (n=19) demonstrated that they had a vocation for medicine and among those students there was an imperfect negative correlation between the results of the vocational test and the access exam. Conclusion: The results of the study showed that the majority of students have vocational profiles that are incompatible with the medical profession.