Personality Types of Medical Students in Terms of Their Choice of Medical Specialty: Cross-Sectional Study

Research on personality types among doctors reveals its impact on medical specialty choices, suggesting that considering personality in career planning may enhance work satisfaction and reduce burnout risks.

This study, encompassing 2104 medical students, explores how personality types, traits, and gender relate to specialty preferences.

Participants of this study were medical students from various universities in Poland. The study surveyed 2104 participants. Each participant completed a general questionnaire and a NERIS Type Explorer personality test, based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator inventory and the "Big Five" personality traits concept. The questionnaire was distributed on social media groups for medical students from all Polish universities. An exploratory statistical analysis was performed to find relationships. For each tested relationship a Fisher exact test was conducted and the significance level was P<.05. Each test resulted in a P value and odds ratio (OR) with a CI. To ensure we included undecided students and obtained meaningful data, we allowed participants to select up to three medical specialties from the 77 available in Poland at the time of the study.

The findings unveil significant relationships between gender, personality types, traits, and specialty preferences. Women tended to favor Neonatology (OR 9.15, 95% CI 3.02-45.46), while men leaned toward Orthopedics and traumatology of the locomotor system (OR 7.53, 95% CI 4.87-11.94). Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Prospecting, and Turbulent students showed a heightened interest in Psychiatry (OR 2.23, 95% CI 1.64-3.01), whereas Introverted, Observant, Feeling, Judging, and Turbulent types favored Family Medicine (OR 2.98, 95% CI 2.08-4.24) and Pediatrics (OR 2.13, 95% CI 1.51-2.99).

In conclusion, this research establishes a link between personality and medical specialty selection. Taking into account the significant role of personality traits, it should be considered to integrate them into the process of selecting a medical career or designing a medical curriculum. This approach may allow for the customization of programs to match students' traits, thereby cultivating improved clinical communication skills, fostering interprofessional collaboration and ultimately enhancing treatment outcomes and professional fulfillment among physicians. The main limitation of this study is that it was conducted on medical students, who lack the full knowledge of the work as a specific specialist. A study surveying medical doctors with longer internships across different wards could be conducted to check for any variabilities. Moreover, there are other significant factors that influence one's medical specialty choice. Certainly, this area could be further explored.