Student’s motivation to pursue a graduate-entry medicine degree programme

The decision to pursue medicine is a significant step for individuals, particularly those for whom this involves a career change. While medicine in the UK has traditionally been an undergraduate course, graduate-entry medicine (GEM) programmes were introduced in 2000 and offer an accelerated course for suitably qualified candidates with a Bachelor’s degree. Students have a variety of motivations for undertaking a GEM programme (Carter & Peile, 2007), and we herein explore the factors that influence this range of motivations.