What Kind of Dr. Turkish Medical Students Want to be Depends on Their Personality and Sex

Abstract Students have important, life altering decisions to make. One of those is what specialty they will go into. In this study (N = 376), we examined the future vocational interests (i.e., basic medicine, surgery, psychiatry) of Turkish medical students to see whether their personality (i.e., the Dark Triad, competitiveness, empathy, gender role identity) and medical specialty preferences were related. We found that in women, preference for psychiatry was the highest while surgery was the lowest among all three specialties. In men, preference for basic medicine was the highest; however, preferences for surgery and psychiatry did not differ. Narcissism was more strongly correlated to the preference for basic medicine in women compared to men, and it was positively correlated with the preference for basic medicine more, compared to the preference for psychiatry in women. Psychopathy was positively associated with the preference for surgery more than the preference for basic medicine in women. The enjoyment of competition was positively correlated with the preference for basic medicine and surgery more in women compared to men while it was negatively associated with the preference for psychiatry more compared to the preference for surgery in men. The avoidance of contention was negatively correlated with the preference for basic medicine compared to the preference for surgery in women while it was positively correlated with the preference for psychiatry compared to the preference for surgery in men. Compassionate care negatively correlated with the preference for basic medicine more in men, compared to women. Keywords: Medicine; Personality; Dark Triad; Gender Roles; Sex Differences; Empathy; Competitiveness