Trends in evolution of specialty choice: comparison of US medical school graduates in 1983 and 1987
Article Abstract:
A study identified students' specialty interests through a questionnaire administered at the time of the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT). A few months before medical school graduation these students were again asked to complete a second questionnaire from the Association of American Medical Colleges. The results compared the stability and evolution of specialty choices of U.S. medical school graduates in 1987 with the 1983 cohort. It was found that as the cohort group advanced through medical school they became more interested in the subspecialty areas of internal medicine, psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology, anesthesia, radiology, and rehabilitation medicine. This group became less interested in family practice, general surgery, pathology, and public health. The study concludes that the processes of choosing a medical specialty are complex and depend on many factors encountered during medical school education. In addition, post-graduate choices of medical specialties are influenced by role models, duration of residency, type of patients encountered, life-style, income potential, malpractice costs, etc. Analysis of these, and other determinants of choice, should lead to new knowledge of student attitudes toward specialty choices.
Publication Name: JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0098-7484
Year: 1989
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Medicine against society: lessons from the Third Reich
Article Abstract:
One of the lessons to be learned from the Nazi regime is that ethical concerns can be perverted by social and political forces. Many German physicians actively participated in the torture and slaughter of millions of Jews in Nazi Germany. The publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 led to the rise of the eugenics movement in Europe. Eugenics supporters believed that races could be improved by selective breeding. The Nazi Party adopted this belief and began a campaign against the Jews. Many physicians joined the Nazi Party because they needed jobs.
Publication Name: JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0098-7484
Year: 1996
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