The study aimed to evaluate attitudes of Japanese medical students toward career development, including the acquisition of medical specialty and doctorate degree qualifications.

This involved a web-based questionnaire survey.

We asked medical students about attitudes toward career development after graduation. We also asked them about their intentions to acquire a medical specialty and a doctorate degree using a 5-point Likert scale.

All 699 medical students (from first to sixth grade) in our medical school.

The overall questionnaire response rate was 66.5% (465 of 699). Over 90.3% (420 of 465) of respondents desired the clinical discipline, while only 10 of 465 respondents (2.2%) did for basic research. Awareness of career development for ≥8 years after graduation was significantly lower compared with that for 1–2 years after graduation among fourth–sixth year students (fourth p=0.0023, fifth p

Most Japanese medical students concentrated on the 2-year initial training period immediately after graduation, with vague plans for the subsequent years. Intentions to acquire a doctoral degree were significantly lower than those for a medical specialty. Our findings underscore the necessity for a comprehensive, longitudinal and systematic career development programme.