Abstract
BackgroundMany jokes exist about stereotypical attributes of physicians in various specialties, which could lead to prejudices against physicians from a specific specialty. It is unknown whether and when medical students are aware of stereotypes about different specialties. The goal of this study was to analyze the degree of stereotypes that exist about medical specialties amongst undergraduate medical students at different stages of their education.MethodsOne hundred fifty-two jokes with different content about attributes of physicians from different specialties were found by an internet search. In total, 36 characteristics of the five specialties of anesthesia, general surgery, internal medicine, orthopedics, and psychiatry were extracted from the jokes and they constituted the basis for the development of an online questionnaire. The questionnaire allowed each characteristic to be assigned to one of the five specialties and was sent to 999 undergraduate medical students from semester 1, 7, and 12 at the Medical Faculty of Hamburg University.ResultsThree hundred eight (30.8%) of the invited students completed the survey. The characteristics of general surgeons and psychiatrists were assigned congruently most frequently (>50%). For internists and orthopedics, there was a significantly more congruent assignment of the characteristics by final year students versus students in their first semester. Male students assigned the characteristics of anesthetists and internists significantly more congruently than female students. The three characteristics “…are a bit slow on the uptake”, “…consider income to be relatively unimportant”, and “...apologize a lot” were not assigned to any of the five specialties by more than 50% of the students.ConclusionsWhile stereotypes about physicians from certain specialties seem to exist commonly, medical educators need to be aware that stereotypes about specialties might develop during undergraduate medical training. In order to support students in their professional identity formation without developing stereotypes, medical educators should receive training. Performing a similar study with physicians in postgraduate training would shed some light on stereotypes and prejudices that might develop at a later stage in medical education.
Highlights
Many jokes exist about stereotypical attributes of physicians in various specialties, which could lead to prejudices against physicians from a specific specialty
Male students assigned the characteristics of anesthetists (p = 0.011) and internists (p = 0.001) significantly more congruently than female students (Fig. 2) while no significant differences were observed for the assignment of characteristics to general surgeons, orthopaedics, and Characteristics per specialty
There was no increase in assignment of the stereotypic characteristics to surgeons and psychiatrist by students from different semesters, which could suggest that these stereotypes might be common knowledge, e.g. from movies or books and widely spread [29, 34]
Summary
Many jokes exist about stereotypical attributes of physicians in various specialties, which could lead to prejudices against physicians from a specific specialty. Aside from serious recommendations, a funny algorithm was created in 2005 by a resident from Yale School of Medicine to guide students’ choice of specialty based on “personality characteristics” [5] While it included “recommendations” for ten different medical specialties, this algorithm was posted in a blog of a professional networking website for doctors and medical students [6] in 2011 with its “recommendations” extended to 18 specialties. Anecdotal evidence reports residents and medical students to find some truth in the depicted personality characteristics with respect to their assigned specialties [5] This raises some concerns, as not many of the personality characteristics are flattering and role modelling has been shown to play the greatest role in specialty choice [7, 8]. It remains unclear whether funny stereotyping nurtures common prejudices or describes some hidden unfavorable truths about physicians with certain characteristics favoring certain specialties
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