Like father, like son?: Familial aggregation of physicians among medical and psychology students

Various research findings, mostly from Anglo-American countries, evidence the medical profession to be strongly familial and further suggest that a medical family background may be associated with study success in medical undergraduates. This study explored the familial aggregation of the medical profession among 1-year cohort samples of medical and psychology students in Austria. Whereas physicians only amount to about 0.4% of the total Austrian population, 45.8% of final-year medical students reported any and 25.6% a first-degree medical relative. Male students more likely had physicians in their family than female students and both sexes more likely had male than female medical relatives. Male final-year medical students with first-degree medical relatives were significantly younger than those without, thus indicating faster study progress in this group. Physicians also ran in the families of psychology students, as did psychologists and psychotherapists. Implications of these findings, study limitations, and avenues for future research are discussed.