Stress, burnout and doctors' attitudes to work are determined by personality and learning style: A twelve year longitudinal study of UK medical graduates

Archived Comments

1. Predicting performance and satisfaction in medical specialities

   9 September 2004

   Chris Martin, Laindon Health Centre, CHIME-UCL, Essex Primary Care Research Network

   This is a fascinating paper with important information for educationalists and careers advisors in colleges. There is also the opportunity to enhance careers advice at medical school.

   Specialist training is long and hard, and it is apparent that some people find themselves in the wrong speciality for them when it is far too late to change direction. These people face long and miserable lives in medicine, may drop out, and might have been productive and happy in another speciality. It may well be that people with certain personality types or learning styles may perform better in particular specialities than others. It would be very interesting if there were further work with this cohort that looked at personality and learning styles at medical school and compared them with satisfaction and performance in different specialities. This might allow medical schools to advise medical students appropriately about what medical specialities they are most likely to be fulfilled and successful in.

   Competing interests

   None

2. Question Of Motivation For Entering Medicine

   1 October 2005

   Jeremy Sims, GP

   Very interesting: but I would be keen to know the motivations for applying to med school in the first place. Might motivations between the 3 learning groups be different? i.e. peer or family pressure vs. personal desire. In which case might we say that many doctors have chosen the wrong careers and really should have applied themselves to something more suited to their personality type (and not heeded the pressures of others)?

   Competing interests

   None declared