Spar I L, Pryor K C, Simon W
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, New York 14642-8601.
Acad Med. 1993 Jul;68(7):570-2. doi: 10.1097/00001888-199307000-00017.
The increased educational indebtedness of graduating medical students has led to speculation about the effects of students' debt levels on their choices of practice specialties as evidenced by their residency preferences.
Information was analyzed for 1,658 medical students who graduated from six private medical schools in 1988, 1989, and 1990; 1,431 of these students had educational debts. Chi-square analysis was used to compare the 1,431 students' average levels of indebtedness with their selections of residencies leading to specialties with higher or lower potential incomes. For this analysis, the students were grouped into four clusters based on the potential incomes of their specialty preferences. In addition, various subgroups, i.e., men, women, need-based scholarship recipients, and underrepresented-minority students, were also studied.
For all the students, there was no relationship among their average levels of indebtedness and their specialty preferences. Similar results were obtained for all the subgroups--men, women, underrepresented-minority students, and scholarship recipients. However, the women students tended to have higher levels of indebtedness than the men.
The results do not support the hypothesis that debt level is a determining factor among the variables that influence choices of residency by graduating medical students.
毕业医学生教育债务的增加引发了关于学生债务水平对其执业专业选择的影响的猜测，这从他们对住院医师培训的偏好中可见一斑。
对1988年、1989年和1990年从六所私立医学院毕业的1658名医学生的信息进行了分析；其中1431名学生有教育债务。采用卡方分析比较这1431名学生的平均债务水平与他们选择的住院医师培训所对应的潜在收入较高或较低的专业。在此分析中，根据学生专业偏好的潜在收入将他们分为四类。此外，还研究了不同的亚组，即男性、女性、基于需求的奖学金获得者以及代表性不足的少数族裔学生。
对于所有学生而言，他们的平均债务水平与专业偏好之间没有关联。在所有亚组（男性、女性、代表性不足的少数族裔学生和奖学金获得者）中也得到了类似的结果。然而，女生的债务水平往往高于男生。
这些结果不支持债务水平是影响毕业医学生住院医师培训选择的变量中的一个决定因素这一假设。
