Personality traits of endodontic residents indicate potential for becoming endodontic faculty

Dental schools across America are challenged by the shortage of qualified faculty to fill vacant positions. This project, conducted through survey methodology, focused on obtaining a basic understanding of the personality types that seek out and maintain positions as full-time endodontic educators and compared those educators with endodontic residents to define similarities and differences that could lead to strategies to recruit those residents into academic endodontic education to assist in alleviating the faculty shortage in dentistry. All full-time endodontic faculty and residents were invited to participate. The Myers Briggs type indicator form M was administered electronically to faculty and postgraduates/residents. A 38.8% faculty and 21.3% resident response rate was achieved. Survey results were analyzed by using description statistics and chi-square tests. Results of the study indicate that there are parallel personality preferences of residents and faculty resulting in recommendations of early identification of academic interest, structured mentoring, faculty development of residents, and the implementation of debt-reduction strategies to ease entry into academic dentistry.