Epidemiology of Brain Drain of Medical Students of Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory: A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study

Objectives: The term “Brain Drain” is used when highly skilled professionals leave their home country for a foreign one. This has been observed in Pakistan, where around half of medical graduates choose to migrate abroad. This study aims to determine the factors causing medical professionals to migrate in order to make relevant changes to the Pakistani healthcare system.

Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study.

Setting: The study was conducted in medical colleges and tertiary care hospital of Punjab province and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) of Pakistan.

Participants: Total 271 medical students in their 3rd, 4th and final years of medical school and house officers working in tertiary care hospitals were included through convenience sampling from February to July 2023. Students with foreign passport or were admitted on foreign seats were excluded.

Primary and secondary outcome measures: Primary outcome measures were the factors causing migration or push factors, and secondary outcome measures were factors opposing migration or pull factors.

Results: Two third of participants (75.3%) were in favour of migrating abroad.  Of these participants, 20.6% had no intention to return. Male participants and house officers were more willing to emigrate when compared to their counterparts (p<0.05).The most common reasons of going abroad were better quality training (65.2%) and better financial compensation (62.3%). The main suggestions made by the participants to incentivize medical graduates to stay in Pakistan were improved quality of training (48.0%), better working environment (44.6%) and job security (36.3%).

Conclusion: This study showed the potential catastrophic loss of healthcare professionals from Pakistan. Multiple factors contributing to this brain drain were determined, which need to be further studied and addressed to prevent this issue from exacerbating. This is an alarming situation for authorities, and steps should be taken to stop this mass emigration and to reduce the burden of the healthcare system.