Assessing the Reason for Choosing Dentistry as a Career: A Survey Among First-Year Dental College Students

Career choice is a complex decision in our life. The opportunity to participate in dental education in many countries, especially in the developing ones, is limited to a small percentage of the community. Choosing dentistry as a career option may be due to various reasons, influences like economical status, financial status, social status, and many more. Students also try to make a career choice while studying itself. Meanwhile, choosing dentistry as a job should be accomplished with more precise considerations because changing this job is rarely possible. The changing nature of the dental workforce and the need to retain the services of future members has made it important to understand why current dental students have chosen dentistry as their career. However, the choice of dentistry becomes forceful at times by peer pressure, cultural thrust, or inability to procure medicine. Questions distributed through an online survey were answered by the participants and the results are collected and analyzed statistically. From the results obtained and analyzed the various reasons for choosing dentistry as a carrier was understood. The main reason for choosing dentistry as a career is because majority (42.97%) missed MBBS as their first career choice.