© Babcock University Medical Journal Career aspirations of a set of new intake students at a Government owned medical school in Lagos, Nigeria 1 2 3 Modupe Rebekah Akinyinka , Temitope Ashipa, Esther Oluwakemi Oluwole , 1 2 Olumuyiwa Odusanya, Wole Alakija 1 Department of Community Health and Primary Health Care, Lagos State University College of Medicine, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria. 2 Department of Community Medicine, Ben Carson School of Medicine, Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Nigeria. 3 Department of Community Health and Primary Health Care, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria. ABSTRACT Objectives This study was carried out in order to identify the career aspirations of new intake of medical students in a government-owned school in Lagos Nigeria, the factors influencing their choice of a specialty and reasons behind the choice of a medical career and medical school. Methods The study was a cross-sectional descriptive study that made use of a self-administered semi- structured questionnaire to elicit career aspirations of the total population of new intake of medical students in 200 level of study. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Health research and Ethics Committee of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 19 was used for data analysis. Results There was a 95.6% response rate (65/68). Over half of the respondents were in the 20 -29 year age group (53.8%) with a similar proportion of the students being female. A majority of respondents (82.1%) chose to study medicine on account of personal interest or love for the profession and would be willing to continue medical practice after graduation (83.1%). Surgery was the preferred specialty of most respondents (47.3%). The most common motive for choice of specialty was interest in, or love for the specialty (89.1%). Conclusion Desire for eventual specialization in one of the fields of medicine was evident at the early stages of the training programme. Counselling about medical specialties should therefore commence very early to provide guidance for new intakes. Correspondence : Dr Modupe R Akinyinka , Department of Community Health and Primary Health Care, Lagos State University College of Medicine, Lagos, Nigeria. Email: apodupsy@yahoo.com INTRODUCTION Medical education exposes medical students to a variety of medical subjects. It has been reported that medical students have a desire to specialize prior to their exposure to clinical aspects of their training. The choices that medical students make regarding their career preferences at the point of entry into medical school may eventually determine their future specialty areas. Therefore a close look at these choices and the factors responsible for these choices is important. The choice of specialty area among medical students has commonly been reported as internal medicine and surgery among first and final year medical students and interns in Nepal, fourth and fifth year medical students in Malaysia, third, fourth and sixth year medical students in Jordan and among all classes of ,,, medical students in a study in Kenya. Although internal medicine was still the preferred specialty in a study conducted in the United Kingdom (UK) among new entrant and final year students, the second most common choice was general medical practice, which was also the preferred option for one in three medical 6,7 students in Canada. In Sweden, medicine, surgery and general medical practice were the preferred specialties among final year 8 students. Female students in Nepal and Jordan , however preferred obstetrics and gynecology. A study carried out among 1,031 first year medical students from five countries, namely China, Sri Lanka, Nepal, India and Malaysia reported the most preferred future specialties as surgery, internal medicine and pediatrics with gender variations; males preferring surgery and females choosing obstetrics and 2,4 gynecology. Among students in Saudi Arabia, the most preferred specialties were surgery and internal medicine, while specialties like community medicine, forensic medicine and obstetrics and gynecology were the least 2