Personality as a Prognostic Factor for Specialty Choice

Image from WikipediaVia Medscape (Free Registration Required), based on the "Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Personality Inventory":

There were differences among specialties for neuroticism (P = .006), openness (P < .001), and agreeableness (P = .003), but not for extraversion (P = .173) or conscientiousness (P = .103). Neuroticism scores for graduates entering internal medicine were higher than anesthesiology, and scores for graduates entering pediatrics or radiology were higher than anesthesiology and surgery. Openness scores for graduates entering psychiatry were higher than anesthesiology, dermatology, emergency medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, radiology, and surgery, and scores for graduates entering obstetrics-gynecology were higher than anesthesiology, dermatology, radiology, and surgery. Conscientiousness scores for graduates entering radiology were lower than anesthesiology, dermatology, family medicine, internal medicine, internal medicine/pediatrics, and obstetrics-gynecology, and scores for graduates entering family medicine were higher than surgery.