Medscape surveyed 1,600 physicians; the study was released Feb. 7. Fifty-three percent had one or two children and 37 percent had three or four children.
Forty-nine percent of physicians surveyed said they would support their children selecting a career in medicine. Nineteen percent said they would oppose it and 32 percent said they would neither support nor oppose their children becoming doctors.
Thirty-two percent of respondents said they did not want their children to join the medical field because they felt the industry is worsening. Twenty-eight percent said it was because of work-life balance difficulties, 13 percent noted the emotional toll the profession takes, 8 percent said the compensation is too low for the workload and 7 percent cited the abuse of power of administrators.
Three percent of physicians listed the cost of medical school, high risk of litigation, and “other” as why they were opposed to their children getting into medicine. Two percent were opposed due to a general lack of autonomy.
The Medscape study comes in the wake of a 2022 Doximity poll that found that 60 percent of physicians would “probably” or “definitely” not want their children to work in medicine. Heavy caseloads and long hours were the top reasons for these physicians’ responses, according to the report.
