Department of Pathology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada V6H 3N1.
Hum Pathol. 2011 Jun;42(6):802-7. doi: 10.1016/j.humpath.2010.10.018. Epub 2011 Feb 2.
Pathology is an unpopular residency choice for medical students worldwide. In some countries, this has contributed to a crisis in pathologist human resources that has affected the quality of clinical laboratories. Several previous studies have used information from junior medical students and from residents to suggest ways of improving pathology recruitment. There are, however, no published studies of pathology residency choice that focus on the senior medical students who must be recruited. This study uses focus groups of senior medical students to explore both general and pathology-specific influences on residency choice. Several general influences are identified, including students' expectations for their future clinical practices, their own clinical rotation experiences, influences from other people including mentors, and their choice to reject certain fields. Several specific antipathology influences are also revealed, including negative stereotypes about pathologists, a perceived incompatibility of personality between most medical students (extroverted) and pathologists (introverted), and perceptions of pathologists as being in some ways nonmedical. The most important antipathology influence was that, from the students' perspective, pathology was utterly invisible in clinical practice. Most students did not consider and then reject a pathology residency: instead, pathology was completely ignored. Given the importance of clerkship electives in influencing medical student career choice, promoting clerkship experiences in pathology may improve recruitment. However, departments of pathology must first make pathology visible to students and teach them how pathologists contribute to clinical care.
病理学是全球医学生不太受欢迎的住院医师选择。在一些国家，这导致了病理学家人力资源危机，影响了临床实验室的质量。以前有几项研究使用来自初级医学生和住院医师的信息来提出改善病理学招聘的方法。然而，目前尚无针对必须招聘的高年级医学生的病理学住院医师选择的已发表研究。本研究使用高年级医学生的焦点小组探讨了对住院医师选择的一般影响和病理学特定影响。确定了几个一般影响因素，包括学生对未来临床实践的期望、自己的临床轮转经验、包括导师在内的其他人的影响，以及他们选择拒绝某些领域的原因。还揭示了一些特定的反病理学影响因素，包括对病理学家的负面刻板印象、大多数医学生（外向）和病理学家（内向）之间人格的感知不兼容性，以及认为病理学家在某些方面非医学的观念。最重要的反病理学影响因素是，从学生的角度来看，病理学在临床实践中完全看不见。大多数学生没有考虑并拒绝病理学住院医师：相反，病理学完全被忽视了。鉴于实习选修课程对影响医学生职业选择的重要性，推广病理学实习经验可能会改善招聘。然而，病理学系必须首先让学生看到病理学，并教导他们病理学家如何为临床护理做出贡献。
