Background: Career development of health professionals is one of many uses
of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), with many studies reported from the
1950s. Since 1977 no large-scale effort to collect data on the medical scho
ol population has been reported.
Purpose: To determine (a) changes in MBTI profiles of medical students over
time, (b) differences between the profiles of men and women and the effect
s of the increased number of women in medical school, (c)possible associati
ons between type and career choices, and (d) possible type differences of g
raduates selecting primary care and specialties.
Method: Twelve U.S. schools with data on 3,987 students contributed to a da
tabase of their graduates' MBTI type and specialty choice at Match.
Results: Compared with data from the 1950s, the type distribution of physic
ians has remained fairly stable, save for a trend toward more judging types
. Women in medicine today are more representative of the general population
on the feeling dimension than earlier, when medicine was more male-dominat
ed. Women are more likely than men to choose primary care specialties, as a
re those with preference for introversion and feeling. Feeling types choose
Family Medicine significantly more often than thinking types; male, extrav
erted, and thinking types choose surgical specialties. Of those selecting n
onprimary care, male, extraverted, and thinking types choose surgical speci
alties significantly more than women, introverted and feeling types.
Conclusion: Type remains useful for understanding how some aspects of perso
nality relate to medical specialty choice.