TY - JOUR T1 - Swedish medical students' expectations of their future life AU - Diderichsen, S. AU - Andersson, J. AU - Johansson, E.E. AU - Verdonk, P. AU - Lagro-Janssen, A. AU - Hamberg, K. KW - medical students KW - gender KW - future expectations KW - physician' KW - s role KW - work-life balance PY - 2011/11/24 Y1 - 2011/11/17 VL - 2 N1 - doi: 10.5116/ijme.4ec5.92b8 DO - 10.5116/ijme.4ec5.92b8 M3 - doi: 10.5116/ijme.4ec5.92b8 JO - Int J Med Educ SP - 140 EP - 146 PB - IJME SN - 2042-6372 UR - http://www.ijme.net/archive/2/students-expectations-of-their-future-life/ L1 - http://www.ijme.net/archive/2/students-expectations-of-their-future-life.pdf N2 - Objectives: To investigate future life expectations among male and female medical students in their first and final year. Methods: The study was cross-sectional and conducted at a Swedish medical school. Out of 600 invited students, 507 (85%) answered an open-ended question about their future life, 298 (59%) first-year students and 209 (41%) last-year students. Women constituted 60% of the respondents. A mixed model design was applied; qualitative content analysis was utilized to create statistically comparable themes and categories. Results: Students' written answers were coded, categorized and clustered into four themes: "Work", "Family", "Leisure" and "Quality of personal life". Almost all students included aspects of work in their answers. Female students were more detailed than male ones in their family concerns. Almost a third of all students reflected on a future work-life balance, but considerations regarding quality of personal life and leisure were more common among last-year students. Conclusions: Today's medical students expect more of life than work, especially those standing on the doorstep of working life. They intend to balance work not only with a family but also with leisure activities. Our results reflect work attitudes that challenge the health care system for more adaptive working conditions. We suggest that discussions about work-life balance should be included in medical curricula. ER -