774 ANOTHER LOOK AT CAREER CHOICE AND LEARNING STYLES

Abstract

Few relationships have been found between physicians' career choices and learning and personality styles. This study re-examines physicians' career choices utilizing a learning preference inventory which assesses approaches to learning. METHOD: The majority of residents in the specialties of internal medicine (62), obstetrics/gynecology (16), pediatrics (52), psychiatry (15), and surgery (24) completed the Rezler Learning Preference Inventory, and the FIRO-B Scale. The analysis method to determine differences was an ANOVA. RESULTS: Residents in all specialties except psychiatry had strong preferences for concrete, practical learning while many psychiatry residents prefer learning theoretically (p .05). Significantly more (p .05) psychiatry residents preferred teacher structured learning while residents in other specialties were more likely to prefer student-structured learning (p .05). Pediatric residents preferred learning with others (p .05) while ob/gyn residents preferred independent learning such as reading (p .05). On the FIRO-B Scale which measures typical ways individuals interact with other people, pediatric residents as compared to the other specialties were more likely to want others involved in their activities and to have warm and personal relationships instead of doing things alone or have businesslike relationships.