Variation in personality traits of medical students between schools of medicine

Wilson, Ian G; Griffin, Barbara; Lampe, Lisa; Eley, Diann; Corrigan, Gerard; Kelly, Brian; Stagg, Pamela

doi:10.3109/0142159x.2013.827331

Cited by 15 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Taken together, since the pool of graduate entry candidates is potentially the same for all schools as the process is open to all Portuguese citizens, these findings suggest that there was a positive contribute of MMIs to attract or to select students with enhanced empathy. Indeed it has been reported that students with high levels of Conscientiousness and Agreeableness are being attracted to schools that use interviews in their selection process [24]. That evidence combined with our findings that the most agreeable and conscientious students are also the most empathic, justify our result that schools that use MMIs have the most empathic students.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Associations between Medical Student Empathy and Personality: A Multi-Institutional Study

et al. 2014

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BackgroundMore empathetic physicians are more likely to achieve higher patient satisfaction, adherence to treatments, and health outcomes. In the context of medical education, it is thus important to understand how personality might condition the empathetic development of medical students. Single institutional evidence shows associations between students' personality and empathy. This multi-institutional study aimed to assess such associations across institutions, looking for personality differences between students with high empathy and low empathy levels.MethodsParticipants were 472 students from three medical schools in Portugal. They completed validated adaptations to Portuguese of self-report measures of the NEO-Five Factor Inventory(NEO-FFI) and the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy(JSPE-spv). Students were categorized into two groups: “Bottom” (low empathy, N = 165) and “Top” (high empathy, N = 169) according to their empathy JSPE-spv total score terciles. Correlation analysis, binary logistic regression analysis and ROC curve analysis were conducted.ResultsA regression model with gender, age and university had a predictive power (pseudo R2) for belonging to the top or bottom group of 6.4%. The addition of personality dimensions improved the predictive power to 16.8%. Openness to experience and Agreeableness were important to predict top or bottom empathy scores when gender, age and university were considered.” Based on the considered predictors the model correctly classified 69.3% of all students.ConclusionsThe present multi-institutional cross-sectional study in Portugal revealed across-school associations between the Big5 dimensions Agreeableness and Openness to experience and the empathy of medical students and that personality made a significant contribution to identify the more empathic students. Therefore, medical schools may need to pay attention to the personality of medical students to understand how to enhance the empathy of medical students.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Associations between Medical Student Empathy and Personality: A Multi-Institutional Study

et al. 2014

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“…Personality traits have been shown to vary among students entering different medical schools, but little is known about whether such variability exists among students entering different residency training programs . There are limited data describing the personality characteristics of EM physicians, although prior research indicates that these traits may include a passion for unpredictable situations, optimism, and strong interpersonal skills .…”

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confidence: 99%

Identifying the Emergency Medicine Personality: A Multisite Exploratory Pilot Study

Jordan

Linden

Maculatis

et al. 2018

AEM Education and Training

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Objectives: This study aimed to understand the personality characteristics of emergency medicine (EM) residents and assess consistency and variations among residency programs. Methods:In this cross-sectional study, a convenience sample of residents (N = 140) at five EM residency programs in the United States completed three personality assessments: the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI)-describing usual tendencies; the Hogan Development Survey (HDS)-describing tendencies under stress or fatigue; and the Motives, Values, and Preferences Inventory (MVPI)-describing motivators. Differences between EM residents and a normative population of U.S. physicians were examined with one-sample t-tests. Differences between EM residents by program were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance tests.Results: One-hundred forty (100%), 124 (88.6%), and 121 (86.4%) residents completed the HPI, HDS, and MVPI, respectively. For the HPI, residents scored lower than the norms on the adjustment, ambition, learning approach, inquisitive, and prudence scales. For the HDS, residents scored higher than the norms on the cautious, excitable, reserved, and leisurely scales, but lower on bold, diligent, and imaginative scales. For the MVPI, residents scored higher than the physician population norms on altruistic, hedonistic, and aesthetics scales, although lower on the security and tradition scales. Residents at the five programs were similar on 22 of 28 scales, differing on one of 11 scales of the HPI (interpersonal sensitivity), two of 11 scales of the HDS (leisurely, bold), and three of 10 scales of the MVPI (aesthetics, commerce, and recognition).Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the personality characteristics of EM residents differ considerably from the norm for physicians, which may have implications for medical students' choice of specialty. Additionally, results indicated that EM residents at different programs are comparable in many areas, but moderate variation in personality characteristics exists. These results may help to inform future research incorporating personality assessment into the resident selection process and the training environment.

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“…Controlling for age revealed that the differences that subsisted—neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness—were explained by sex alone. A recent study, conducted in Australia, led to alternative findings, namely that there are small magnitude differences in personality between undergraduate and graduate entry students when age and sex are controlled [ 17 ]. Further research must be conducted to clarify these cross-cultural discrepancies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The characterization and eventual contribution of graduate entry students’ personality profiles to the diversity of medical student populations across institutions remains mostly unaddressed [ 10 ]. The exception is a recent multi-institutional study in Australia, which compared undergraduate and graduate entry schools and found significant but small magnitude differences in conscientiousness and agreeableness between schools [ 17 ]. This study was conducted to clarify whether high school and graduate entry students differ in their personality profiles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An exploratory study on the contribution of graduate entry students personality to the diversity of medical student populations

et al. 2014

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Studies conducted in medical education show that personality influences undergraduate medical students academic and clinical performances and also their career interests. Our aims with this exploratory study were: to assess the contribution of graduate entry students to the diversity of personality in medical student populations; to assess whether eventual differences may be explained by programme structure or student age and sex. We performed a cross-sectional study underpinned by the five-factor model of personality, with students attending three medical schools in Portugal. The five personality dimensions were assessed with the Portuguese version of the NEO-Five Factor Inventory. MANOVA and MANCOVA analyses were performed to clarify the contributions of school, programme structure, age and sex. Student personality dimensions were significantly different between the three medical schools [F(10,1026) = 3.159, p < .001, = 0.03, π = 0.987]. However, taking sex and age into account the differences became non-significant. There were institutional differences in personality dimensions. However, those were primarily accounted for by sex and age effects and not by the medical school attended. Diversifying age and sex of the admitted students will diversify the personality of the medical student population.

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Variation in personality traits of medical students between schools of medicine

Cited by 15 publications

References 21 publications

Associations between Medical Student Empathy and Personality: A Multi-Institutional Study

Associations between Medical Student Empathy and Personality: A Multi-Institutional Study

Identifying the Emergency Medicine Personality: A Multisite Exploratory Pilot Study

An exploratory study on the contribution of graduate entry students personality to the diversity of medical student populations

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