Work style preferences among medical specialties

Strong Interest Inventory Personal Style Scales (SII-PSS) assess people's preferences for work style, learning environment, leadership style, and risk taking. We examined whether the SII-PSS predict medical specialty choice for college students. We administered the scales to 355 students when they began a combined Bachelor of Science/Doctor of Medicine program during the 2003–2005 academic years. Specialty choice was obtained when these students graduated from medical school during 2009–2011 academic years. In the end, 120 students (34%) provided useable data and were included in the analysis. The remaining students either did not graduate from the 6-year BS/MD program or entered preliminary or transitional specialties. Specialties included in the analysis were internal medicine, family medicine, psychiatry, surgery, pediatrics, emergency medicine, anesthesiology, and obstetrics/gynecology. Work style was the only PSS variable that showed differences across various specialties. A MANOVA showed that the work style scale was significantly different across various specialties (p < .05, Bonferroni correction p < .006). Students who went into internal medicine scored significantly higher on working with people rather than ideas or things (X = 53.08, SD = 8.90) compared to students who went into surgery (X = 46.25, SD = 7.44, F = 6.83) or anesthesiology (X = 42.38, SD = 5.15, F = 10.70). Students who entered obstetrics/gynecology also scored significantly higher on working with people (X = 54.25, SD = 7.62) than students who entered anesthesiology (X = 42.38, SD = 5.15, F = 12.13). In the realm of medical specialties, preferences for working with people versus things may underlie choices between the group of medical specialties categorized as primary-care versus those categorized as surgical and as technical specialties.