Programmes in the Health Sciences are less pursued by students compared to competative programmes such as medicine,
pharmacy, and dentistry. This study aimed to investigate the perception of Form Five students towards a career in Health
Sciences in four dimensions including characteristics that are considered as “important” in the selection of a career
choice, the level of knowledge in professions within the field of Health Sciences, students’ perception towards a career in
the field of Health Sciences and their possible career choice in the field of Health Sciences. This is a cross-sectional study
that included 188 students from 10 secondary schools around Kuala Lumpur. The results showed that the respondents
prioritized career characteristics that provided “job satisfaction”(97.8%), “job security” (96.8%), “interesting” (95.2%),
“helping other people” (92.4%), “doing something good for society” (92.1%) and “high salary” (88.6%). Respondents
also reported high level of knowledge for the profession of Medicine (93.1%), Pharmacy (84.0%), Dentistry (76.6%),
Nursing (74.8%) and Forensic Science (71.3%). Respondents knew the least about Speech-Language Therapy (28.0%),
Audiology (27.0%) and Occupational Therapy (19.3%) professions. Differences in terms of gender and ethnicity were also
identified through this study. Respondents’ perception towards the professions were influenced by the level of familiarity,
ethnicity and gender. Respondents were found to be less familiar and have misperception towards less-known professions,
and this affect respondents’ consideration to pursue these professions as careers.
The Indian ethnic group remains underrepresented despite the continued advancement in the field of speech and language
therapy (SLT) in Malaysia. This study aims to investigate the perception of Malaysian Indian Pre-university students towards
a career in the health sciences and specifically for the SLT profession. This was a cross-sectional study that employed
convinience sampling method to recruit participants. A total of 110 Indian pre-university students from urban cities of
Kuala Lumpur and Johor were recruited. The findings showed majority of the respondents (>90%) placed importance
on a career that provided “high salary,” “job stability,” and “career’s social standing in the community.” Almost all
respondents recognize the medical, pharmacy and nursing profesion compared to only