What Are the Personality Types Among Emergency Medicine Physicians?

Introduction Emergency medicine physicians work in high-stress environments that strain interpersonal skills, communication, and decision-making. Personality profile assessment tools have been used in educating the corporate world to enhance self-awareness, improve communication, and decrease conflict. Despite this, personality profile assessment tools have not been applied extensively within the emergency department context. As such, we explored whether Insights Discovery (Insights, Dundee, Scotland), a registered personality assessment tool, could contribute valuable understanding into the personality landscape of emergency medicine physicians and help tailor future educational interventions. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted via online administration of the Insights Discovery questionnaire to 30 attending emergency physicians of urban tertiary-care and community emergency departments of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Results A disproportionately low number of fiery red personality types, typically described as competitive and strong-willed, existed among the study groups. No other significant differences were found between the proportions of other personality types or between physician characteristics such as gender or years of experience. Conclusion This study sheds early light on the personality characteristics of physicians within the emergency department environment, which may help individuals and departments tailor interventions to improve interpersonal communication and interactions.