Objective: to study the motivation of dental students to postgraduate dental education programs and the factors that might contribute to it. Materials and methods: a questionnaire survey were distributed among male and female dental students at their internship training year that were directed toward the general preference of postgraduate specialty training and their career preference. Variable factors were included such as gender, residential area, parents’ education, and the type of program. The data were collected, extracted, tabulated, and analyzed. Results: A total of 115 students responded. Statistical analysis was conducted using the SPSS program and looking at Pearson’s correlation and logistics regressions for results. It was found that females represented 59% of the group (males, 41%). Most of the students are turning toward clinical based specialties (79.2%) over the research based ones (1.7%) and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.01). The percentage of students whom did not decide yet about the postgraduate path was 19%. (P = 0.019), and most of them were actually females. Parental education was found to be a non-significant factor toward choosing a career path while accepting a job at a rural area was found to be rejected by most of the applicant, however females were the most (Pearson’s correlation=0.3, P= 0.019). Job preference was turning the most toward academic university setting 44% (P=0.011), while 41% selected working at other governmental hospitals and the private practice scored significantly the least of interest (15%). Conclusion: Clinical based programs, working at academic universities, and in main cities were the summary of the preferences. Students were turning away from research programs, working at rural areas, or a solo private practice. Variables did not show a significant power that affects choices and hence the urgent need of undergraduate orientation programs and optimizing the working environments in other sectors to support the distribution of the manpower toward different career paths in Saudi.

dental students, undergraduate, preference, specialty, postgraduate, education, career