P-1876. Early Exposure to Infectious Diseases Specialty Among Undergraduate Students with Interests in Healthcare Careers

TL;DR

This study explores how undergraduate students interested in healthcare careers are exposed to infectious diseases specialty, finding that most learn about it through a summer program or media, with limited direct experience.

Contribution

The study is the first to focus on early exposure to infectious diseases among undergraduate students, identifying gaps and opportunities for increasing interest in the specialty.

Findings

Most students learned about infectious diseases through a summer enrichment program or COVID-19-related media.

Few students had direct experience with infectious diseases, such as knowing a patient or professional in the field.

Interest in internal medicine or pediatrics among students could serve as pathways to infectious diseases careers.

Abstract

Studies investigating early exposure to the Infectious Diseases (ID) workforce have not focused on undergraduate students. We evaluated the experiences, exposure to, and interest in ID of student participants in a college summer enrichment program at a Midwest academic medical center.Table 1:Demographics of respondentsFigure 1:Thematic analysis of top 3 medical specialties considered by students

Demographics of respondents

Thematic analysis of top 3 medical specialties considered by students

A web-based survey was distributed to program alumni who participated from 2019–2024. Survey responses and participant characteristics were summarized using descriptive statistics. Ordinal regression models assessed associations between sources of ID exposure and interest in learning about or pursuing ID as a specialty. Thematic analysis performed on comments.Figure 2:Source of exposure to ID by interest in the specialtyFigure 3:Interest in learning about or choosing infectious diseases as a specialty

Source of exposure to ID by interest in the specialty

Interest in learning about or choosing infectious diseases as a specialty

Of 446 surveys delivered to program alumni (2019–2024) 65 were completed (14.6% response rate), with higher response rates from the 2022–2024 cohorts (Table 1). Post-program, 63/65 respondents remained interested in healthcare, most commonly medicine (37/65). Thirteen of 32 identifying a specialty of interest cited internal medicine (IM) or pediatrics; 2 named ID specifically. Most students think of IM/subspecialties (22%), surgery/subspecialties (20%), and pediatrics/subspecialties (15%) when medicine is mentioned (Figure 1). The top themes explaining these selections were personal experience (45%), perceived “common” specialties (29%) and shadowing (21%). Eighty percent (52/65) of students were familiar with ID. Among these students, top sources of prior ID exposure included the program (62%), COVID-19-related media (54%). (Figure 2). Direct experience was limited: only 1 student knew a patient and 2 knew a professional in the field. Nearly half (30/65) were at least fairly interested in learning more about ID (Figure 3).

Most students cited the summer enrichment program and consuming COVID-19-related media as their source of exposure to ID. Few students had direct experience with ID, but almost half of students interested in medicine identified interest in internal medicine or pediatrics which could lead to an ID career. This highlights opportunities to increase earlier exposure to the specialty, with shadowing and personal experiences as desirable avenues to develop this interest.

All Authors: No reported disclosures

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