Pakistan is lacking in specialist doctors, over 40 percent of fresh graduate doctors quit their profession and the female medical practitioners are a large part of it.
Every year150 thousand students apply to medical colleges for admission. After following various procedures, only 10 percent of them get in. This includes over fifty percent, female students. But after their graduation, over 40% of students quit practicing. Some of them go abroad to practice. Females stay at home after getting married.
The government pays 2.5 million on each student every year who takes admission on merit. A fee of the merit-based student is just Rs. 15,000-20,000. The government contributes a large number of funds to make medical students capable to save lives after becoming doctors. Unfortunately, these students ignore to understand rather they give many reasons behind quitting.
We conducted a survey to inquire about the reason behind quitting. One said, “I never wanted to go for the medical field, but my parents pressured me to study it, but studying medicine is not a piece of cake. And now as I have completed my degree, so I do not want to practice it anymore”. Another one said, “medical is a very difficult field with long working hours, many books to study and there is no time to relax”.
Sometimes society pressure disturbs the medical student mentally just like it stresses to achieve a medical degree. These students quit and it wastes government investment. Millions of rupees get wasted every year and Pakistan is lacking doctors.
One other student stated, “we are only MBBS passed students who have no worth in Pakistan to get good jobs, but specialization is the only way to get a job. In my point of view, other professions are quite better than it because those other professions give satisfied financial security, whereas the medical field requires much effort”.
1% of medical students commit suicide because of drastic stress and depression. Tasneem Anjum was a medical student who committed suicide in the final year and depression was the main reason behind it. Another medical student Yousaf Pirkani committed suicide because of the extreme stress of studies. Depression is one of the biggest reasons for graduate students quitting the medical profession.
Women in Pakistan are not encouraged to study and that is one reason they get a medical degree but do not go for further study or do not practice. They include seventy percent of the women in medical admissions every year and only fifty percent of them are working and the remaining fresh graduate doctors quit.
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Pakistan produces 32,879 physicians and surgeons every year and out of the 40 percent go abroad and now there are only 20,000 specialists. Although the requirement demands specialists for 100,000 people. That is a large amount for only 20,000 specialists.
In a recent survey published in Pak J Med Sci the researchers from Punjab Medical College Faisalabad identified that 140 (33.3%) of Pakistan’s 420 medical students—both male and female—plan to leave the country after they graduate, while 280 (66.66%) want to stay and work there. The vast majority of medical students reported pleasure with living in Pakistan when asked about the facilities provided to Pakistani doctors throughout their training. However, the United States was the top choice for medical students who wanted to immigrate. Although there are several factors that influence doctors’ decisions for immigration, the majority of students believe that low income and long hours are the main causes of subpar patient handling and insufficient training. By strengthening the pay and service structures, this might be avoided. so in conclusion, the study found that one in three medical students want to migrate abroad after graduation because of a lack of funding and poor management, which has had a negative impact on Pakistan’s socio-medical status. In order to stop brain drain, it is crucial for Pakistan’s health officials to start efforts to address the problems faced by medical students and doctors.
Now is the need to establish more medical institutes so that more students can enroll. Business concerns and other well-known dealers should be asked to invest in healthcare.
