In recent years, many new opportunities have opened up to doctors, enabling them to realize their skills, education, and quest for excellence. Throughout all the stages of their career, doctors make choices. These include the decision to study medicine, and later, the decision whether to remain in the field or to leave it. When a doctor is disappointed in his profession he will obviously be more inclined to seek alternatives, and will likewise impart the message to the younger generation that some other career is perhaps preferable to medicine.

The issue of the profession’s appeal can be examined from two perspectives, which are closely linked and mutually influential:
 

• The appeal of medical studies to the undergraduate.
• The appeal of clinical practice to the doctor.
   

We will discuss the diminishing prestige of the medical profession from both these perspectives, and examine this phenomenon in view of the increasing shortage of doctors, and the crisis of the profession.