Initial Career Choices of Medical School Honors Graduates in the Early 1970s and 1980s

To investigate the changes over time in the attractiveness of a number of medical specialties as careers, the author analyzed the initial career pathways of students who graduated with honors in 1972, 1973, 1982, and 1983 from nine of the most prestigious American medical schools. The data were analyzed to discern career selection differences among the total population studied, between the men and women, and between the graduates of public and private institutions. Internal medicine showed statistically significant declines in its attractiveness to the students in all the categories but remained overrepresented as a career choice by honors students compared with its attractiveness to medical students in general for the years studied. Radiology was chosen by an increasing percentage of the honors students in the 1980s, but mostly by students from private medical schools. The men who were honors graduates in the 1980s chose surgery fields more often, while women honors graduates tended to enter pediatrics and obstetrics-gynecology. These data indicate that the career choices of honors graduates in the early 1980s more closely mirrored the career choices of all students entering medical specialty fields and do not reveal gross imbalances. Of the primary care disciplines, only internal medicine attracted fewer honors graduates in the 1980s. Acad. Med. 64(1989): 616–621.