Influences on Medical Student Career Choice: Gender or Generation?

HYPOTHESIS We hypothesized that increased enrollment of female medical students and different priorities of the current generation of students would be important influences on the declining interest in surgical careers. DESIGN Students scored statements on surgical careers on 5-point Likert scales regarding agreement and whether these statements encouraged them to pursue a career in surgery. Data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test. Qualitative comments were iteratively coded using a constant comparative method. SETTING Nine US medical schools. PARTICIPANTS A Web-based survey on the Association for Surgical Education server was e-mailed to medical students. A total of 1300 of the 1365 respondents stated their sex. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The survey asked questions pertaining to surgical life, surgical residency, surgeons as influence, equity, family, and other influences. RESULTS A total of 680 (52%) of the 1300 respondents were male. Men and women disagreed about whether surgeons lead well-balanced lives (68% and 77%, respectively) and saw this as a deterrent. A total of 35% of women (3% men; P