Table.

Rank order of wishes according to the number of students expressing each wish

Rank	Wish	Examples	No (%) of students (n=520)
1	Happiness	To be happy throughout my life. Happiness in my career and personal life	177 (34)
2	Money	One million dollars. My student loan to go away	165 (32)
3	Altruism	To help others in need. An end to world hunger and poverty	159 (31)
4	Achievement	To become a successful surgeon. To get into a top specialist training position	141 (27)
5	Health	Good health for myself and family. Avoid the health problems of my parents	116 (22)
6	Intimacy	True love. To have good relationships with those I care about	110 (21)
7	Self esteem	To be more confident in the things I do. To have the guts to go for what I really want	79 (15)
8	Religious	That I would honour God in all that I did. That all my friends become Christians	41 (8)
9	Travel	Travel the world. Go to Europe on a ski holiday	41 (8)
10	Time	To have enough time to do what I want to do. Two more hours each day	40 (8)
11	Knowledge	To never sit exams again and still know everything about medicine. To have already finished medical  school with all the knowledge I need	33 (6)
12	Appearance	To have the ultimate body. Never go fat	32 (6)
13	Affiliation	To have a larger and supportive group of friends and acquaintances. To see my friends and family more often	30 (6)
14	Power	To be president of the world. World dominance	24 (5)
15	Food	To have a Big Mac right now. A lifetime supply of chocolate	16 (3)
16	Sexual	A gorgeous babe. A constantly available supply of high quality sex	14 (3)
17	Undoing	To see my grandparents, who have died. I wish I had followed a different path	11 (2)