Is a third year clerkship in emergency medicine correlated with a career choice in emergency medicine?
BACKGROUND
The factors medical students use to choose emergency medicine (EM) as a career path have not been well studied. The role of a 3rd year clerkship in EM in a student's choice of EM residency is not known.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this survey was to determine whether a 3rd year clerkship in EM is correlated with a student's choosing EM as a career choice, as evidenced by the number of students who apply for or matching in EM in medical schools in the United States.


METHODS
The deans of American medical schools were surveyed by mail, using a seven-part questionnaire inquiring as to type of exposure, number of students, length of the exposure, number of students applying for and matching in EM in the past 3 years. The data was analyzed using SPSS software.


RESULTS
The survey was returned by 71 of the 125 medical schools (56.8 percent) in the country. The average class size was 129.9 students. Over one half of the medical schools (58.8 percent) provided EM exposure in the 3rd year; in 38.7 percent it was a required clerkship. The number of students applying for or matching in EM was not correlated with a required or elective rotation in EM, departmental status, percentage of board certified emergency physicians, emergency department volume, or a residency training program in EM (p >.05).


CONCLUSIONS
This study did not demonstrate a correlation of a 3rd year rotation in EM with the number of students applying or matching in EM.
Department of Emergency Medicine, Finch University/Chicago Medical School, Mount Sinai Hospital, Illinois 60608, USA. zunl@sinai.org
Leslie S
LS
Zun
LaVonne
L
Downey
D000328:Adult; D002321:Career Choice; D002982:Clinical Clerkship / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004635:Emergency Medicine; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D014481:United States