Changing specialties: do anesthesiologists differ from other physicians?

Career choices of physicians frequently change after senior year in medical school. Although previous studies have documented the magnitude of these changes, they contain no information concerning anesthesiologists. Changes in specialties of 1151 physicians, graduates from the same medical school, between the years 1968 and 1976 were studied. Of these physicians, 35 (3%) are presently engaged in the practice of anesthesiology. Of 31 physicians who planned careers in anesthesiology as seniors, 26 (84%) remained in anesthesiology. Nine physicians changed from other specialties to anesthesiology. The ability of anesthesiology to retain physicians who originally planned to specialize in it, or to gain physicians from other fields, was not different from that found in other specialties studied.