Objective: To gain insight in the career development of Utrecht medical school graduates.
Design: Retrospective cohort study.
Method: In November 2015, we investigated the achieved academic title, occupation and position for 281 graduates who had started their medical education at University Medical Centre Utrecht (UMCU) in the academic year 2003-2004. Information was gathered from the BIG-register for medical professionals, through social media and Google, and if necessary through private messaging. We compared our results to those from previous cohort studies on the career paths of medical graduates from University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG) and Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), both dating back twenty years.
Results: On average five years after graduation, 52% of all 281 graduates was in residency, 11% was occupied as general practitioner and 7% was a medical specialist. Among residents, the most frequently chosen specialties were general practice (12%), internal medicine (10%), psychiatry and radiology (both 7%). This distribution of residents amongst these specialties was largely consistent with distributions found in the Groningen and Leiden cohorts. In our cohort, 21% of graduates had achieved a PhD and an additional 16% was a PhD student, whilst only 13% of the Groningen cohort had achieved a PhD.
Conclusion: A relatively large number of UMCU medical school graduates become a medical specialist. The distribution of UMCU graduates amongst different medical specialty residencies is consistent with the distribution observed nationally. A notable rise in PhD graduates and students is noted in our cohort, when compared to the UMCG cohort analysed 20 years earlier.