Specialty Satisfaction of Senior Specialists of a Tertiary Level Medical Teaching Institution

Introduction: Like any other professions specialty satisfaction is an important factor for quality service in the healthcare institutions also. There are different reasons of satisfaction and dissatisfaction in different age group, gender and types of specialties. Aim of this study was to evaluate the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the senior specialists on their own specialties. Methodology: It was a questionnaire based survey. Sample size was 45. Specialists have more than 5-year experience were included in this study. Reasons of selecting the specialty, causes of satisfaction or dissatisfaction were included in the questionnaire. Level of satisfaction was documented by Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) guideline. Non-judgmental or neutral participants were excluded from the study. Chi-square test was done for the significance tests for categorical data. Result: Satisfaction level was very high (93%) and was equally distributed in both the genders. Among the participants 29 (65%) were male and 16 (35%) were female. Key reasons of selecting the specialty were scope to teach (44.44%), scope to treat patients (33.33%) and duration of the course (26.67%). Main causes of satisfaction were less physical / mental stress (21.92%), student / patient satisfaction (17.81%) and scope of job / family time balance (16.44%). The most important fator for specialist dissatisfaction was less time to work-family imbalance (26.09%). Conclusion: Selecting the specialty is an important decision of life. Spending time with family is desirable for the specialists and lack of work-family imbalance can lead to high level of dissatisfaction.