The authors distributed a questionnaire to all members of a medical
school graduating class (N = 85) to identify those students who had
"seriously considered psychiatry as a career choice at any time." Eight
such students were identified, 5 of whom chose specialties other than
psychiatry. The authors' objective was to identify the critical factors in
these 8 students' final selection. Their results support the importance of
the clinical clerkship in the students' decision making; the results also
indicate considerable shifting in career choice during the students'
medical school years and reveal a strong antipsychiatry bias on the part of
nonpsychiatric faculty.Abstract Teaser