Here you'll find a detailed chart which lists medical specialties in
relation to function pairs for temperament.
ST -- sensing plus thinking (practical and matter-of-fact)
SF -- sensing plus feeling (sympathetic and friendly)
NF -- intuition plus feeling (enthusiastic and insightful)
NT -- intuition and thinking (logical and ingenious)
Attractiveness of Medical Speciality by Temperament
http://www.gesher.org/Myers-Briggs/MBTI%20Chart%20and%20specialty.html
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These articles are not available online for free, but may be purchased
from Lawrence Erlbaum Associates:
"Background: Career development of health professionals is one of many
uses of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), with many studies reported
from the 1950s. Since 1977, no large-scale effort to collect data on
the medical school population has been reported. Purpose: To determine
(a) changes in MBTI profiles of medical students over time, (b)
differences between the profiles of men and women and the effects of
the increased number of women in medical school, (c) possible
associations between type and career choices, and (d) possible type
differences of graduates selecting primary care and specialties.
Method: Twelve U.S. schools with data on 3,987 students contributed to
a database of their graduates' MBTI type and specialty choice at
Match. Results: Compared with data from the 1950s, the type
distribution of physicians has remained fairly stable, save for a
trend toward more judging types. Women in medicine today are more
representative of the general population on the feeling dimension than
earlier, when medicine was more male-dominated. Women are more likely
than men to choose primary care specialties, as are those with
preference for introversion and feeling. Feeling types choose Family
Medicine significantly more often than thinking types; male,
extraverted, and thinking types choose surgical specialties. Of those
selecting nonprimary care, male, extraverted, and thinking types
choose surgical specialties significantly more than women,
introverted, and feeling types. Conclusion: Type remains useful for
understanding how some aspects of personality relate to medical
specialty choice."
Myers-Briggs Type and Medical Specialty Choice: A New Look at an Old Question
http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15328015TLM1201_3
"Background: Multiple variables affect medical specialty choice,
including temperament, sociodemographic factors, and personal
experiences. Many studies address specific variables for specific
specialties, but few assess the relative impact of each factor.
Purpose: To identify the relative influence of temperament in choosing
a specialty.
Methods: A sociodemographic and personal experiences questionnaire and
a 240-question temperament and character inventory was distributed to
682 medical students. Their scores for 6 medical specialties were
examined using analyses of variance, multivariate analyses of
variance, and discriminant analysis.
Results: Students choosing surgery, emergency medicine, and obstetrics
and gynecology were higher on novelty seeking than other students.
Future surgeons were lower in harm avoidance and reward dependence
(RD) than the others. Students choosing primary care specialties,
emergency medicine, and obstetrics and gynecology were all high on RD;
with pediatrics being highest. Students differed from college
students, the women differed from the men, and the Asian Americans
differed from the other groups.
Conclusion: The implications of these findings are discussed for
career counseling and future research."
Relationship Between Specialty Choice and Medical Student Temperament
and Character Assessed With Cloninger Inventory
http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15328015tlm1602_6
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This book may be very useful:
"Self-Assessment
'Looking at Type, a description of the preferences reported by the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator,' Center of applications of Psychological
Type, Inc., a non-profit organization for education, research and
services, 414 Southwest 7th Terrace, Gainesville, Florida 32601. Over
10,000 physicians have been typed, and the characteristics grouped for
those in each specialty have been detailed."
UIC College of Medicine: Book List
http://www.uic.edu/depts/mcam/osa/careers/booklist.htm
Several online merchants offer "Looking at Type: A Description of the
Preferences Reported by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator," the book
described above. Here's a price comparison:
AddAll:
http://www.addall.com/New/BrowseCompare.cgi?isbn=0935652094
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More reference sources:
"In comparison with internists, surgeons are thought to be more
aggressive, rigid, insensitive, impersonal, hostile, extroverted,
explosive, and possibly more energetic and ambitious. Many of these
characteristics represent various manifestations of aggressiveness.
The stereotype also refers to modes of interacting with people and to
motivation or drive. The task in the present study was to investigate
whether or not the stereotype was accurate in a sample of physicians
from both specialties. There was also an interest in other personality
characteristics which might differentiate the two groups, particularly
styles of thinking and problem solving."
THE SURGICAL PERSONALITY: A COMPARISON OF MEDICAL AND SURGICAL
RESIDENTS WITH THE RORSCHACH
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=287537&action=stream&blobtype=pdf
"The surgical personality is one of problem solving. The stereotypical
surgeon has the aura of being able to solve any problem one can give
to them and to do it quickly, incisively and completely. Thus the
image of the surgeon as he/she announces, 'We got it all.'
If one observes a surgeon in the clinical environment and compares
him/her to an internal medicine specialist in the same situation the
internist is, 'Hmm, well let's see.' and the surgeon is, 'OK Let's go
we've got to get this fixed now.'
The internal medicine physician slowly attaches to the patient
(problem) and builds a communication bond with the warmth of empathy..
The surgeon fixes the patient (problem) in the glare of his/her
problem-solving gaze and with a few, perhaps disjointed, questions
announces the solution and proceeds with the necessary action.
When it comes time to evaluate the outcomes of these two approaches
the internal medicine physician has that bond of empathetic
communication to connect to the patient. The surgeon usually announces
the outcome of the procedure as successful (complete) or unsuccessful
(incomplete). Announce is the operative word and is in contrast to the
communication of the internal medicine specialist."
The Compleat Surgeon: Decisive And Empathetic
http://www.cancerlynx.com/surgeon.html
"Personality is likely to be an important factor in the practice of
surgery because the competent surgeon must be motivated to learn and
practice and must be able to cope with the need to make urgent and
efficient decisions in the operating room. With the recent
difficulties some surgical programs have had filling all of their
residency positions, and with high attrition rates in some surgical
programs, ensuring that an individual?s personality is congruent with
a surgical lifestyle is increasingly important. Greenburg and
colleagues examined faculty surgeons' and senior house officers'
perceptions of important personality traits, with the hope of
establishing a 'definable surgical personality.' There was a high
level of agreement that honesty about errors, discipline, the ability
to consider all facts, motivation, and consistency were desirable
traits. Schueneman and colleagues found that the personality factor
most predictive of operative skill was 'stress tolerance,' as measured
by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Deary and colleagues reported
that surgical trainees tend to be more 'introverted' and
conscientious. Fitzgerald cites that Saville and Holdsworth, using the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, studied the personality types of senior
house officer applicants to surgery. These investigators found a large
proportion of candidates had 'intuitive' and 'thinking' preferences.
According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, 'intuitive' people
prefer gathering information through a 'sixth sense' and then noticing
what it might be; and, 'thinkers' have a preference for organizing and
structuring information to make decisions in a logical and objective
way."
Department of Surgery, University of Toronto: Surgery Newsletter
http://www.bmc.med.utoronto.ca/newsletter/jun03/jun03nl.pdf
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Google search strategy:
Google Web Search: physicians personality specialty
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=physicians+personality+specialty
Google Web Search: personality medical specialty
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=personality+medical+specialty
Google Web Search: medical specialty "myers briggs"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=medical+specialty+%22myers+briggs%22
Google Web Search: "surgical personality"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22surgical+personality
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I hope this helps. If anything is unclear or incomplete, or if a link
doesn't work for you, please request clarification; I'll gladly offer
further assistance before you rate my answer.
Best regards,
pinkfreud |
