title: The medical student's choice of psychiatry as a career: a survey of one graduating class.
abstract: 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.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002321:Career Choice; D002755:Choice Behavior; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D005178:Faculty; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000193:education; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires