Premedical values related to rural family practice

While recent studies concerning values predictors for primary care have concentrated on family practice physicians and medical residents and students, there has only been speculation concerning the predictive role values may have on the eventual choices of entering freshmen medical students to choose family practice careers in rural medically underserved areas. The current study investigated the similarities and differences in values between premedical students and practicing rural family physicians in Tennessee. Further, this study was an effort to determine a possible predictive role personal motivational values may have on the eventual choice of premedical students for selecting rural family practice careers.

The Schwartz Values Questionnaire was used to collect data from selected premedical students and rural family practice physicians across the state of Tennessee. Participants were asked to rate a list of personal motivational values as guiding principles in their lives. The results of the family physicians were compared with results from previous studies with family physicians, then with the premedical students. Arithmetic means were computed and compared among the ten universal values among the different culture groups.

While the results found that rural family practice physicians in Tennessee were comparable to other family physicians when rating personal motivational values as guiding principles in their lives, there was little difference between the students’ values and those of the physicians. In the values types demonstrated to be most important in differentiating rural family physicians from other specialists, there were no significant differences measured among the student populations used.

Previous studies had suggested that personal motivational values might be an important factor to be considered in the admissions processes for medical schools interested in graduating family physicians who may select to practice in rural and underserved areas. The current research did not demonstrate significant differences of values among the premedical students. Hence, the predictive ability to differentiate between rural family practice and other physician specialties is not supported in the current study.