Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:505-508
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
The medical student's choice of psychiatry as a career: a survey of one graduating class
MK Crowder and MH Hollender
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.
