The development of views of specialties during four years of medical school.

A total of 141 medical students at one medical school participated in a longitudinal study of medical specialty choice. Students indicated their choices in the freshman, sophomore, and senior years. They ranked specialties with respect to status and completed an adjective checklist for self and practitioners of five specialties. Measures of social attractiveness and similarity to self were applied for each specialty. Increasing numbers of students chose internal medicine over the four years. Pediatrics and psychiatry lost students, while family practice and surgery changed little between the first and fourth years. Surgery and medicine were ranked highest and family practice and psychiatry lowest as to status. Family practice was ranked highest and surgery lowest as to social attractiveness. In examining similarity to self, medical students regardless of specialty interest rated themselves as having traits similar to those they assigned to the family practitioner.