impact of covid-19 pandemic on specialty choice: a survey of fresh medical graduates of pakistan

Background & objective: medical students form an integral part of future taskforce for the healthcare sector. we aimed to assess the impact of demographic charcateristics and covid-19 pandemic affecting choice of speciality among medical graduates in pakistan.material & methods: a cross sectional study was carried out on fresh medical graduates using two self-designed online questionnaire surveys before and after two months of house job, inquiring choice of specialty, reasons for choosing it, exposure to pandemic and its effect on choice of specialty using chi square test.results: fifty nine percent of medical graduates had chosen field of speciality, significantly impacted by higher socioeconomic class (p = 0.006), fathers with higher education (p = 0.046) and advice about specialty selection (p = 0.044). internal medicine (20%), surgery (19%), obstetrics and gynaecology (o&g) (17%) and dermatology (13%) were most commonly selected. age (p = 0.027), female gender (p = 0.009) and mothers with higher education (p = 0.022) significantly affected choosing o&g, while advice to choose this specialty impacted choosing o&g (p = 0.027) and dermatology (p = 0.022). better patient outcomes, challenging specialty, reputation/prestige and inspiration from a doctor were common reasons to choose a specialty. 9.1% changed their initial choice of specialty based on exposure to covid-19 pandemic of whom majority switched to covid unrelated fields, but it was not statistically significant.conclusion: this study identifies that demographic, patient outcome and personal factors were primary determinants of specialty choice. covid-19 pandemic did not significantly affect career choices among medical graduates.