Electives during medical internship.

Objective: The purpose of the study was to find out the reasons for selecting elective rotations during a rotating medical internship.

Methods: One hundred and seventy-eight medical interns in the College of Medicine, King Faisal University, Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during the period March 2001 to August 2002 completed a questionnaire for their selection reasons with responses on a scale of 1-5.

Results: The study comprised 60% males and 98.3% Saudis. The most frequently chosen electives are dermatology 28.1%, radiology 20.8%, anesthesia 9.6% and otorhinolaryngology (ear, nose and throat [ENT]) 9%. Significantly, more males (89.2%) chose radiology rotation and more females (75%) chose ENT rotation. The leading reasons to choose an elective rotation are: 1. to gain broad medical training and education, 2. to assist in choice of future specialty, and 3. being relevant to future specialty. The mean score for ENT and dermatology is higher than radiology and anesthesia for the response "to participate in medical practice in different institute", while dermatology is higher than anesthesia for the response "to help getting acceptance for job in the same institute", and radiology is higher than ENT and anesthesia for the response "it has infrequent or no night duties".

Conclusion: The reasons chosen reflect the educational value of the electives and their important role in choosing future career. Dermatology and radiology rotations are most popular electives, with additional though different reasons.