A Differentiation Diagnosis — Specialization and the Medical Student

Xu, Rena

doi:10.1056/nejmp1105004

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 5 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…The findings from our study do not necessarily point to specialization as a problematic system rather, instead, they highlight the advantage of broader clinical experiences beginning as early as nursing and medical school. 28 In accordance with variety and stability, the prison health practitioners in this study shared that they derived a deeply satisfying sense of meaning from their service to the highly vulnerable inmate population. In the literature, there has been a recent resurgence of scholarly interest on the importance of meaningful work in healthcare.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Finding meaningful work in difficult circumstances: A study of prison healthcare workers

Stephenson

Bell

2018

Health Serv Manage Res

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Prisons are rigidly structured institutions housing-in some cases-violent and unstable residents. To discover the positive job attributes and perceived challenges in this extreme practice environment, we employed exploratory qualitative content analysis on the written-in responses of 269 prison health workers in one state's Department of Corrections. Two researchers independently analyzed and coded the data. Using an iterative process, we categorized the responses into themes and critical underlying meanings. Positive job attributes included meaningful work, stability, variety of ailments treated, and feelings of support. Perceived challenges included ineffective leadership, constraints on the ability to effectively execute the role, perceived inequity, and organizational culture. The results of our study suggest that there are lessons to be learned from correctional health workers that could inform policy and management outside of the prison walls specifically as it pertains to motivating and engaging providers through meaningful work. Specifically, health organizations would improve the experience of their clinicians by offering a broader scope of practice experience, schedule stability, reducing bureaucratic redundancies, and-ultimately-restoring the sense of purpose within the work itself.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Finding meaningful work in difficult circumstances: A study of prison healthcare workers

Stephenson

Bell

2018

Health Serv Manage Res

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“…They differ not only in their work settings, needed skills, duties, responsibilities, amount of patient contact, type of patients, and working hours but also in prestige, status, social expectations and income [1,2]. Taking this diversity into account, the decision making process and finally committing to a medical specialty for postgraduate medical education seems to be difficult for medical students [3,4]. The individual choice of a medical speciality for postgraduate training is usually a decision for a lifelong career and, therefore, a very important step in the career path of a physician [5,6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining competence profiles of different medical specialties with the requirement-tracking questionnaire – a pilot study to provide a framework for medial students’ choice of postgraduate training

2021

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Background The medical specialties are characterised by a great diversity in their daily work which requires different sets of competences. A requirement analysis would help to establish competence profiles of the different medical specialities. The aim of this pilot study was to define competence profiles for individual medical specialties. This could provide a framework as support for medical graduates who wish to choose a medical specialty for their postgraduate training. Methods In February 2020, physicians were invited via the State Chamber of Physicians’ monthly journal to electronically fill out the requirement tracking (R-Track) questionnaire. It contains 63 aspects assigned to six areas of competence: “Mental abilities”, “Sensory abilities”, “Psychomotor and multitasking abilities”, “Social interactive competences”, “Motivation”, and “Personality traits”. The expression of the different aspects was assessed on a 5-point Likert scale (1: “very low” to 5: “very high”). Sociodemographic data and information about the current workplace (hospital or practice) were also collected. Results In total, 195 practicing physicians from 19 different specialities followed the invitation by the State Chamber of Physicians to participate in this survey. For almost all medical specialties, the competence area “Motivation” reached rank 1. “Psychomotor and multitasking abilities” received high ranks among specialties performing surgical activities, while “Social interactive competences” and “Personality traits” were highly rated by specialties with an intense level of patient-physician-interaction. “Mental abilities” were only rated highly by radiologists (rank 2) and physiologists (rank 3) while “Sensory abilities” were generally rated very low with the expression (rank 4) for anaesthesiology and ENT. Conclusions In this pilot study, a first outline of competences profiles for 17 medical specialties were defined. The specific “Motivation” for a medical specialty seemed to play the greatest role for most specialties. This first specialty specific competence framework could provide a first insight into specific competences required by medical specialties and could serve medical graduate as a decision aid when looking for a medical specialty for their postgraduate training.

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“…Finding the right specialty for postgraduate medical training seems to be a difficult process for undergraduate medical students [ 1 ]. To provide orientation in the jungle of medical specialties some medical schools offer career-development courses or programs for undergraduate medical students even starting as early as in the preclinical years [ 2 , 3 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Just fun or a prejudice? – physician stereotypes in common jokes and their attribution to medical specialties by undergraduate medical students

Harendza

Pyra

2017

BMC Med Educ

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BackgroundMany jokes exist about stereotypical attributes of physicians in various specialties, which could lead to prejudices against physicians from a specific specialty. It is unknown whether and when medical students are aware of stereotypes about different specialties. The goal of this study was to analyze the degree of stereotypes that exist about medical specialties amongst undergraduate medical students at different stages of their education.MethodsOne hundred fifty-two jokes with different content about attributes of physicians from different specialties were found by an internet search. In total, 36 characteristics of the five specialties of anesthesia, general surgery, internal medicine, orthopedics, and psychiatry were extracted from the jokes and they constituted the basis for the development of an online questionnaire. The questionnaire allowed each characteristic to be assigned to one of the five specialties and was sent to 999 undergraduate medical students from semester 1, 7, and 12 at the Medical Faculty of Hamburg University.ResultsThree hundred eight (30.8%) of the invited students completed the survey. The characteristics of general surgeons and psychiatrists were assigned congruently most frequently (>50%). For internists and orthopedics, there was a significantly more congruent assignment of the characteristics by final year students versus students in their first semester. Male students assigned the characteristics of anesthetists and internists significantly more congruently than female students. The three characteristics “…are a bit slow on the uptake”, “…consider income to be relatively unimportant”, and “...apologize a lot” were not assigned to any of the five specialties by more than 50% of the students.ConclusionsWhile stereotypes about physicians from certain specialties seem to exist commonly, medical educators need to be aware that stereotypes about specialties might develop during undergraduate medical training. In order to support students in their professional identity formation without developing stereotypes, medical educators should receive training. Performing a similar study with physicians in postgraduate training would shed some light on stereotypes and prejudices that might develop at a later stage in medical education.

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A Differentiation Diagnosis — Specialization and the Medical Student

Cited by 6 publications

References 5 publications

Finding meaningful work in difficult circumstances: A study of prison healthcare workers

Finding meaningful work in difficult circumstances: A study of prison healthcare workers

Defining competence profiles of different medical specialties with the requirement-tracking questionnaire – a pilot study to provide a framework for medial students’ choice of postgraduate training

Just fun or a prejudice? – physician stereotypes in common jokes and their attribution to medical specialties by undergraduate medical students

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