The orthopaedic surgical personality: comparison with anaesthetist colleagues and the general population

INTRODUCTION We report a service evaluation study investigating differences in the personalities of consultant orthopaedic surgeons and their anaesthetist colleagues, how these groups differ from the general population, and how personality differs between less and more experienced orthopaedic surgeons. METHODS Forty-two consultant orthopaedic surgeons with varying subspecialist interests and their seventeen consultant anaesthetist colleagues were invited to complete the Big Five personality test, which scores respondents in five key personality dimensions: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. RESULTS Analysis of the results using the Mann–Whitney U test showed that the orthopaedic surgeons exhibited significantly more extraversion than their anaesthetist colleagues (p<0.05). Comparison with the general population indicated that both the orthopaedic surgeons and their anaesthetist colleagues had higher levels of conscientiousness (p<0.05) and lower levels of neuroticism (p<0.05) than the general population. In addition, the anaesthetists were less extravert than the general population although this difference narrowly missed statistical significance (p=0.050). When orthopaedic surgeons with <10 years of consultant experience were compared with those who had >10 years of consultant experience, the less experienced surgeons exhibited more extraversion (p<0.05) and less neuroticism (p<0.05) than their more senior colleagues. Univariate linear regression analysis, however, failed to show any correlation between these domains and length of consultant service. CONCLUSIONS Our findings are consistent with previous studies, showing that the personality domains remain stable over time. Further investigation would be required to determine whether developments in the recruitment of orthopaedic surgeons in training now favour individuals with lower levels of neuroticism and greater extraversion.