Knowledge and Attitude of Egyptian Medical Students toward Pursuing a Career in Forensic Medicine

Abstract

Forensic medicine is a crucial field in both healthcare and legal systems. Students’ knowledge and interest in choosing forensic medicine as a career are not clear. Therefore, we aim to assess the current knowledge and attitudes of Egyptian undergraduate medical students and interns toward pursuing forensic medicine as a future career. A cross-sectional study using a self-administered questionnaire that was pilot tested was conducted at the Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University, Egypt. During the academic year 2022/2023, undergraduate students (from the fifth and sixth years) and interns , were randomly selected and invited to fill in an online questionnaire. We received 259 valid responses. Most of the responders were females (59.1%) and in the fifth year ( 35.5%). 93.4% of the students expressed a high to moderate level of knowledge. The faculty curriculum was the main source of knowledge for 60.2% of them. Only 84 students (32.4%) showed a positive attitude toward forensic medicine as a specialty. 28.19% of the students will choose forensic medicine as one of the specialties to train in during their internship year , while 26.3% consider it a potential career option after graduation. no correlation was found between the total scores of participants’ knowledge and their total attitude scores. A decent percentage had a good knowledge of forensic medicine. However, it was not a preferred future career option for most of them. More efforts are needed to raise awareness about forensic medicine as a career choice among medical students in Egypt.