en آموزش پزشکی Medical Education پژوهشي اصیل Orginal Research <div><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="line-height:2;"><b>Background & Objective: </b>Medical students form an integral part of future taskforce for the healthcare sector. We aimed to assess the impact of demographic charcateristics and COVID-19 pandemic affecting choice of speciality among medical graduates in Pakistan<span dir="RTL" lang="FA">.</span><br> <b>Material & Methods:</b> A cross sectional study was carried out on fresh medical graduates using two self-designed online questionnaire surveys before and after two months of house job, inquiring choice of specialty, reasons for choosing it, exposure to pandemic and its effect on choice of specialty using Chi Square test.<br> <b>Results:</b> <span lang="EN-IN">Fifty nine percent of medical graduates had chosen field of speciality, significantly impacted by higher socioeconomic class (p = 0.006), fathers with higher education (p = 0.046) and advice about specialty selection (p = 0.044). Internal medicine (20%), surgery (19%), obstetrics and gynaecology (O&G) (17%) and dermatology (13%) were most commonly selected. Age (p = 0.027), female gender (p = 0.009) and mothers with higher education (p = 0.022) significantly affected choosing O&G, while advice to choose this specialty impacted choosing O&G (p = 0.027) and dermatology (p = 0.022). Better patient outcomes, challenging specialty, reputation/prestige and inspiration from a doctor were common reasons to choose a specialty. 9.1% changed their initial choice of specialty based on exposure to COVID-19 pandemic of whom majority switched to COVID unrelated fields, but it was not statistically significant.</span><br> <b>Conclusion:</b> This study identifies that demographic, patient outcome and personal factors were primary determinants of specialty choice. COVID-19 pandemic did not significantly affect career choices among medical graduates.</span></span></span></div> COVID-19, pandemic, specialty choice, future specialty, specialization, field of choice, medical graduates, medical students, medical education, impact, effect 122 130 http://edujournal.zums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-12-2029-2&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Fatima Sajid fatimasajid92@hotmail.com 5300319475328460027871 5300319475328460027871 Yes Department of Dermatology, Fazaia Medical College, PAF Hospital Islamabad, Pakistan Shayan Rizwan shayanrzw413@gmail.com 5300319475328460027872 0009-0008-5133-2044 No Fazaia Medical College, Islamabad, Pakistan. Muneeza Rizwan muneezar@yahoo.co.uk 5300319475328460027873 0009-0004-1638-8852 No Department of Dermatology, Fazaia Medical College, PAF Hospital Islamabad, Pakistan Asad Ullah Waseem asadullahwaseem@gmail.com 5300319475328460027874 0009-0002-5366-5482 No Fazaia Medical College, Islamabad, Pakistan. Malik M Mufeez mufeez.blue@gmail.com 5300319475328460027875 0009-0002-0856-1753 No Fazaia Medical College, Islamabad, Pakistan. Iraj Khalid irajkhalid01@gmail.com 5300319475328460027876 0009-0006-9959-2000 No Fazaia Medical College, Islamabad, Pakistan.