[Psychological features and cognitive styles of students entering medicine and other careers at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile].

BACKGROUND

The similarity between the psychological features of medical school freshmen of different cohorts suggests that Medicine attracts students with specific psychological types. However, it is also possible that medical students are similar to the students admitted to any other career with high admission requirements.

AIM

To determine if medical school freshmen are different from those of Engineering, Architecture, Psychology and Journalism.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

The Spanish version of the Myers Briggs Psychological Type Indicator (MBTI) was applied to two cohorts of Medical School freshmen (90 students of the 2000 cohort and 91 students of the 2001 cohort) and to a sample of 669 freshmen from the careers of Engineering, Psychology, Architecture and Journalism.

RESULTS

Students entering Medical School are similar to the students admitted to Engineering and different from those that entered Architecture, Psychology and Journalism in the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 2000 and 2001. Medicine attracts a larger proportion of concrete and practical students that have an objective and systematic approach to study and to life in general. Unlike Medicine, Psychology and Architecture attract more students that have a cognitive style characterized by an intuitive perception, and that face life with an open and flexible attitude.

CONCLUSIONS

This study reveals that the psychological features of undergradutate students are associated to their career choice. These psychological variables, therefore, may be relevant to the students' vocational preferences and possibly to their future specialty choice.