PERSONALITY TYPE AND MEDICAL SPECIALTY

PERSONALITY TYPE

AND

MEDICAL SPECIALTY

(Excerpt from” The ultimate guide to choosing a medical speciality”)

By

Brian Freeman, MD

Resident in Anesthesiology and Critical Care

University of Chicago Hospitals

Chicago, Illinois

What makes you tick? How do you handle stress? What gives you satisfaction and fulfillment?

How do you interact with your peers? These are all dimensions of a doctor’s personality.

Discerning your personality type is not simply finding a stereotype that fits. Instead, it means

identifying your distinctive attributes, values, and affinities and finding the natural comfort

zone where your true preferences lie as a physician.

Although it is especially important for doctors‐in‐training to select a specialty that is the best

match with their personality, best match does not mean it has to be perfect. Take a hard look at

the physicians you have met and make sure that your personality type is well represented

(rather than underrepresented) in the specialty that interests you. The notion that opposites

attract will probably not lead to a long, satisfying medical career. For instance, most physicians

would not dispute the idea that empathic, laid‐back medical students make better psychiatrists,

and strong‐minded, authoritarian, no‐nonsense ones should become surgeons. In these

examples, students find themselves most comfortable working side‐by‐side with other

physicians who share their personality traits. When you get along well with your colleagues,

patients end up receiving the best medical care possible.

Many physicians have studied the relationship between a doctor’s personality and chosen

specialty. A group of surgeons sought to determine whether there were differences in the

characteristics and temperament of physicians in three types of medical careers: surgical,

primary care (family practice, internal medicine, and pediatrics), and controllable lifestyle

specialties (anesthesiology, dermatology, emergency medicine, neurology, ophthalmology,

pathology, psychiatry, and radiology).1 Most students think of surgeons as dominant,

uninhibited, and aggressive. They tend to overlook the fact that surgery requires a certain type

of person who can handle its tasks and challenges. Are you one of them? Their study found that

surgeons tend to score higher than other specialists on being extroverted, practical, social,

competitive, and structured. At the same time, however, surgeons were less creative than their

colleagues in controllable lifestyle specialties (who were found to be the most withdrawn and

rebellious). Neither group differed significantly from the primary care physicians. This particular

study, therefore, helps to support the idea that a physician’s satisfaction in a given specialty has

a lot to do with personality factors, like temperament and sociability.

Another landmark study surveyed a group of medical students to determine any relationships

between personality type and specialty choice.2 Students entering the hospital‐based

specialties (anesthesiology, radiology, or emergency medicine) had less tolerance for ambiguity

and preferred highly structured environments with fixed guidelines and immediate closure to

Page 3 of 9

every patient encounter. Future obstetrician‐gynecologists saw themselves as warm and

helpful, but they were also emotionally vulnerable, uncomfortable around others, and very

concerned about appearances and making a good impression. Future pediatricians, who sought

warm and close interactions with their patients, were the most extroverted and sociable

people. In contrast, the introverted students with fewer social connections—particularly the

ones who had been in psychotherapy themselves— became psychiatrists. The study also found

that students interested in surgery were more likely to be competitive, aggressive, and highly

confident. They were the doctors‐to‐be who carried a strong conviction that their actions could

rapidly influence the course of events.

When checking out all the different choices, medical students should keep in mind that more

than one specialty could meet their preferences. For every personality type, it is possible to find

a satisfying match with more than one area of medicine. If you are a visually oriented person,

consider specialties like pathology, dermatology, and radiology. For students who want to

speak only the language of medicine every day as a doctor’s doctor, radiology and pathology

are ideal choices. Primary care specialties, like internal medicine and family practice, are great

opportunities to have long‐term, intimate patient relationships. If you prefer an action‐oriented

specialty that gives immediate gratification, then consider anesthesiology, any surgical

subspecialty, and emergency medicine. Some areas overlap considerably—like the great variety

of medical problems encountered in both family practice and emergency medicine. But at the

same time, they can have significant differences—like the long‐term follow‐up nature of family

practice versus the acute, stabilize‐the‐patient‐and‐move‐on style of emergency medicine.

Thus, to make the best decision, you have to know yourself and your desires well.