The effect of violence against doctors on the career selection of students of Mani̇sa Celal Bayar University Faculty of Medicine

Aim: Violence is the intentional use of physical force or threat, against oneself, another person or a group, that either result in death, psychological or physical damage. The violence in healthcare is any verbal, behavioral threat that creates danger for the healthcare worker or physical attack by patients, their relatives or another person. In this study, we aim to assess how the attitudes of the medical students shaped towards violence against physicians and how the violence in healthcare affected their area of expertise, working environment and future and we want to show the effect of the violence in healthcare on the medical student's career plans and discuss the measures against the healthcare violence. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire was prepared for 983 students studying at Manisa Celal Bayar University Faculty of Medicine between 01.07.2019-08.10.2019 in the 2019-2020 Academic Year. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 21.0. Results: We determined that 54.9% of the medical students who cooperated in our study were female, 45.1% were male, with an average age of 20.83 ± 2.05. 23.5% of them were first-term students and 32.6% of them have a healthcare worker in their family. 29% live with their family, 59.9% preferred medical school to be a physician, 59.7% wanted to work in the polyclinic, 65.8% wanted to work in internal medicine. Our results showed that the most wanted branch was cardiology and 15.9% of the participants experienced violence against physicians. They experienced violence particularly in the emergency service; verbal violence was the most common. 93% of them found the measures taken were inadequate. Besides, with the increase of term, students started to prefer internal branches over surgical branches. Conclusion: Violence against physicians is increasing every day and is becoming a public health problem. Remaining silent against this increase has negative direct and indirect effects on physicians, candidates, and society. We show that this problem significantly influences the preferences of medical students. The best option for our country will be the correct implementation of the measures and rearrangement and execution of systematic and legal infrastructure against the violence. Keywords: Violence Against Physicians, Medical Students, Career Choice.