Table 3.
Linear composite variables (LCVs) derived via principal component analysis, with varimax rotation
| Factor (% of variance) | Items (component score) |
|---|---|
| How important are the following factors in considering your career in medicine? | |
| Employment and job security (18.300) | Job security (0.891) |
| Availability of jobs (0.886) | |
| High income potential (0.419) | |
| Intellectual Climate (0.402) | |
| Idealism in medicine (17.713) | Desire to serve my community (0.753) |
| Opportunity to help patients who are socially disadvantaged (0.722) | |
| Desire to do primary care (0.673) | |
| Opportunities to make a difference in peoples’ lives (0.586) | |
| Attraction to medicine (14.013) | Personal attraction to medicine (0.788) |
| Job satisfaction (0.726) | |
| Intellectual climate (0.403) | |
| Status and income (13.384) | Status of physicians (0.907) |
| High income potential (0.712) | |
|
|
|
| How important are the following factors in considering your choice for a specialty? | |
| Prestige and income | Competitiveness of the specialty (0.754) |
| Prestige of the specialty I am considering (0.699) | |
| Options for fellowship training associated with the specialty (0.668) | |
| Income expectations for the specialty (0.536) | |
| Career workshops and courses (0.502) | |
| Opportunities to do research in this specialty (0.470) | |
| Lifestyle and family | The lifestyle of the specialty I am considering (0.821) |
| Ability to balance my work life with my family responsibilities (0.798) | |
| Length of residency training associated with the specialty (0.539) | |
| Idealism in specialty choice | Opportunities to provide care to underserved populations (0.823) |
| Career workshops and courses (0.559) | |
| Opportunities to do research in this specialty (0.488) | |
| Debt over content interest | Content of the specialty (−0.0786) |
| Amount of education debt I have (0.578) | |
| Income expectations for the specialty (0.448) | |
|
|
|
| Attitudes toward primary care | |
| Value of primary care skills | Medical interviewing is a fundamental tool for all medical students to learn (0.873) |
| It is essential that medical students learn how to best communicate with patients (0.837) | |
| Primary care knowledge is useful for all medical students (0.726) | |
| Preventative care knowledge is essential for all medical students to learn (0.707) | |
| Considering PC career | I would like to become a primary care doctor in the future (0.667) |
| Primary care should be a patient's first contact with the health care system (0.631) | |
| A primary care doctor is clinically competent to provide most the health care an individual may require (0.568) | |
| Primary care is not a very intellectually stimulating (−0.565) | |
| Negative/antagonistic view of PC | Primary care doctors mostly manage chronic health problems (0.796) |
| It is impossible to be an expert in such a wide field as primary care (0.753) | |
| I am more interested in learning the skills required for my chosen specialty rather than a general set of clinical practice skills (0.494) | |
| Negative/sympathetic view of PC | Primary care doctors are poorly valued by the rest of the medical profession (0.804) |
| Primary care doctors have a large work overload (0.788) | |
EmpMajor components (≥0.700) are listed in bold; minor components are listed in roman (≥0.400).