A Survey of a Freshman Medical Student Class: Will Psychiatry Recruit Well in the ’80s?

Abstract

In a pilot assessment of recruitment potential for psychiatry in the 1980s, the authors surveyed a class of 90 entering medical school freshmen as to their background, demography, interests, and possible career choices. Of fifteen possible specialty choices, psychiatry ranked eighth in popularity, with fully 11% of the students expressing high interest and an additional 32% mild interest in psychiatry as their career choice. The class as a whole was clinically, humanistically, and altruistically oriented, and expressed most interest in “interpersonal” clinical specialties, of which family medicine was by far the number one choice. The authors review their findings in the light of the literature and statistics on psychiatric education, and conclude that, although one must be cautious about generalizing from only one class in only one school, a pool of interested students may well exist for ultimate recruitment to psychiatry in the ’80s. The authors suggest some strategies to research this issue further and to increase the likelihood that interest will be translated into actual specialty choice.