Study on violence against doctors and its impact on career selection

Abstract

Background: Workplace violence is gaining prevalence throughout the globe in all the institutions, which deals the general public and the hospitals are no exception to it, since it caters a service which connects the emotional component of the patient and their escorts. Objectives: Aims to evaluate the reasons for selecting the Medical Profession, prevalence of insecurity and its impact on career selection among the medical students. Material & Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among the medical students of Sri Lakshmi Narayana Institute of Medical Sciences, Puducherry. A Pre-designed and semi structured questionnaire was framed to collect data from 260 medical students during the period of February-April 2019 and analyzed using SPSS software, version 21. Results: Among the study population, the reason for selecting the medical profession recorded is 57% (147) due to self-interest, since they wanted to serve the humanity, 33.07% (86) joined out of their parents wish, 10.38%(27) said they chose since it is a lucrative profession. 72% of the participants said that doctors are at the higher risk of being victims of violence and the main reason is the manipulation of the news telecasted by the media. According to the students, the specialities with high risk are emergency medicine, surgery, OG and hence they wish to choose dermatology, radiology which are at a lower risk. Conclusion: Violence against doctors is one of the influencing factors for the medical students in deciding their future career and hence Government & Institution should take measures to protect doctors.