Internship workplace preferences of final-year medical students at Zagreb University Medical School, Croatia: all roads lead to Zagreb

A total of 204 out of 240 final-year medical students at Zagreb University Medical School, Croatia, were surveyed a few months before graduation. We collected data on each student's background, workplace preference, academic performance and emigration preferences. Logistic regression was used to analyse the factors underlying internship workplace preference, classified into two categories: Zagreb versus other areas.Only 39 respondents (19.1%) wanted to obtain internships outside Zagreb, the Croatian capital. Gender and age were not significantly associated with internship workplace preference. A single predictor variable significantly contributed to the logistic regression model: students who believed they would not get the desired specialty more often chose Zagreb as a preferred internship workplace (odds ratio 0.32, 95% CI 0.12–0.86).A strong preference for Zagreb as an internship workplace was recorded. Uncertainty about getting the desired specialty was associated with choosing Zagreb as a workplace, possibly due to more extensive and diverse job opportunities.Human resources are a central issue in health system planning [1], and a major concern for both developed and developing countries [2]. Smaller, mid-income countries that do not rely on immigrant health workers depend on their own resources in producing a qualified health workforce. In such countries, careful balancing of the demand and supply of health care professionals is very important. This involves estimating the numbers of health care professionals who must be educated in order to offset losses due to causes such as retirement, death, disability, emigration and leaving the medical profession. Special attention must also be given to other elements, such as demographic change and secular trends, often requiring re-evaluation and re-balancing of the workforce. In its essence, good human resource management depends on the collection of reliable, evidence-based information [2]. Secondly, health care syst