Physician candidates' perception of medicine

Determining the attitudes of medical school students towards the profession of medicine at an early stage is important in terms of developing awareness about their profession. In this study, we aimed to determine the attitudes of 4th, 5th and 6th grade students studying at Trakya University Faculty of Medicine towards the medical profession, the effective factors, and to determine whether there is a difference between the attitudes of physician candidates. The population of the study consisted of 4th, 5th and 6th grade students studying at Trakya University Faculty of Medicine with a total of 301 participants. The questionnaire, consists of a total of 55 questions, including questions about sociodemographic characteristics and the propositions of the The Medical Profession Attitude Scale. In the comparison of independent variables with the scale, Mann Whitney- U test and Kruskall Wallis test was used.The comparison of the scale scores and numerical data were evaluated with the Spearman Correlation test. Out of 301 participants, 53.8% were female, 46.1% were male, 4.8% were 4th grade, 31.8% were 5th grade, and 32.2% were 6th grade students. The mean age was 23.47±1.2 years. Total score obtained from The Medical Profession Attitude Scale ranged between 30,00 and 90,00, with a median score of 64,00. In the study, the median total score (min- max) was 63 (55-70) for males and 65 (60-71) for females; it was seen that the scores of females were higher and it was determined that female students had more positive attitudes towards the profession of medicine. It was found that there was a decrease in the scale score from 4th to 6th grade in attitudes towards the medical profession and 5th grades who started medical school during the COVID-19 pandemic had a lower commitment to the profession. Candidate physicians who chose medical school willingly and voluntarily and59 with the desire to help people, who were satisfied with the faculty they studied, who thought that their expectations would be fulfilled and who were not worried about their future had higher levels of attitudes towards the profession of medicine. According to the results in our study, it is important to determine the attitudes of candidate physicians towards the medical profession at an earlystage in terms of faculty members to be role models for students influence their attitudes positively. Efforts to change attitudes and the impact of laws and regulations about health services on attitudes towards the profession should not be ignored. From this point of view, attitudes towards the medical profession and related factors should be revealed in more detail. KeyWords: attitude, medicalstudents, medical profession