Abstract: Objective To investigate the status of medical students and analyze their relevance to the current medical practice environment, and try to find out the possible factors that affect the medical students’ willingness to seek medical treatment. Methods The questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate the cognition of medical students’ willingness and medical practice environment in the clinical practice of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. The regression analysis model was used to analyze the correlation data. Results The medical students’ willingness to engage in medical treatment and their cognition of medical practice environment, such as doctor-patient relationship, doctor’ s income and pay ratio and the attribution of doctor-patient contradiction, were closely related. There was no significant correlation between the degree of trust of the patient in the eyes of the medical students, the attitude of the patient to the doctor, the cognition of the wounded medical practitioner and the personal safety of the doctor, the view of the media related medical report, and so on. Conclusions Medical students’ cognition of medical practice environment is closely related to their willingness to engage in medical care.To strengthen medical students’ humanistic education, improve the medical students’ professional identity, and guide the correct understanding of current medical practice environment, may help reduce the negative emotions among medical students, firm medical students’ willing to engage in medical care, and reduce the loss of medical talent.

Key words: Medical students, Willingness to engage in medical care, Medical practice environment, Doctor-patient relationship, Medical humanities