Psychologic testing as an aid to selection of residents in anesthesiology

There are no precise psychologic criteria for the selection of residents in anesthesiology. We attempted to provide an objective guide by comparing clinical performance with psychologic tests which we administered to 95 beginning residents in six training programs. The performance of the residents was evaluated by faculty members at the end of the first and second years. We found that high-performance residents scored better than low-performance residents in the categories of Dominance, Independence, Empathy, Responsibility, Socialization, Achievement Motivation, and Well-Being. Prediction of high performance can also be based on Alpha personalities, who typically are independent, reliable, and self-disciplined. The California Psychological Inventory (CPI) is valuable in selecting people with these characteristics.