TY - JOUR
T1 - The personalities of most medical students are suited to rural practice
T2 - Implications for rural education program recruitment
AU - Eley, Diann S.
AU - Cloninger, C. Robert
AU - Power, David V
AU - Brooks, Kathleen Dwyer
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2019/10/3
Y1 - 2019/10/3
N2 - Introduction: The success of rural longitudinal integrated clerkship (LIC) programs has contributed to our understanding of selecting and training students for rural practice. Studies have explored the personality traits of students who participate in rural LICs although few have compared them with classmates who have not. The purpose is to compare personalities of four successive cohorts of students in the LIC Rural Physician Associate Program (RPAP) with their non-RPAP classmates. Methods: In a longitudinal cross-sectional design, medical students RPAP and non-RPAP, from 2013 to 2017 completed identical questionnaires comprising measures of personality, perfectionism, ambiguity tolerance, and resilience. T-tests, ANOVA, and post-hoc tests compared groups. K-means cluster analysis identified profiles of traits. Results: Total sample 286; RPAP = 128; non-RPAP = 158. Gender and age proportions were not different between groups. RPAP students were significantly lower in levels of perfectionism and higher in cooperativeness compared to non-RPAP classmates. Similar proportions of both groups were distributed across three personality profiles detected. Conclusions: Lower perfectionism implies advantages for rural practice. Nevertheless, similarities between groups suggest that most students would be successful in rural practice. More encouragement to all students may improve uptake of rural LICs. Greater attention to issues that affect decisions to explore rural medical education, particularly for our next generation of students, is required.
AB - Introduction: The success of rural longitudinal integrated clerkship (LIC) programs has contributed to our understanding of selecting and training students for rural practice. Studies have explored the personality traits of students who participate in rural LICs although few have compared them with classmates who have not. The purpose is to compare personalities of four successive cohorts of students in the LIC Rural Physician Associate Program (RPAP) with their non-RPAP classmates. Methods: In a longitudinal cross-sectional design, medical students RPAP and non-RPAP, from 2013 to 2017 completed identical questionnaires comprising measures of personality, perfectionism, ambiguity tolerance, and resilience. T-tests, ANOVA, and post-hoc tests compared groups. K-means cluster analysis identified profiles of traits. Results: Total sample 286; RPAP = 128; non-RPAP = 158. Gender and age proportions were not different between groups. RPAP students were significantly lower in levels of perfectionism and higher in cooperativeness compared to non-RPAP classmates. Similar proportions of both groups were distributed across three personality profiles detected. Conclusions: Lower perfectionism implies advantages for rural practice. Nevertheless, similarities between groups suggest that most students would be successful in rural practice. More encouragement to all students may improve uptake of rural LICs. Greater attention to issues that affect decisions to explore rural medical education, particularly for our next generation of students, is required.
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U2 - 10.1080/0142159X.2019.1623388
DO - 10.1080/0142159X.2019.1623388
M3 - Article
C2 - 31203681
AN - SCOPUS:85067629553
SN - 0142-159X
VL - 41
SP - 1160
EP - 1167
JO - Medical Teacher
JF - Medical Teacher
IS - 10
ER -