The Research Career Interests of Graduating Medical Students

In this baseline study, the authors analyze in detail many of the factors that influenced the research career intentions of the 1994 U.S. graduates of MD-only programs. Studies of the research interests of the nation's medical school graduates are important because MD-PhD programs do not produce sufficient numbers of physician-scientists, and the remainder must come from the regular population of medical graduates. Data on school characteristics and medical students' demographics, research career intentions, and educational experiences were derived from the AAMC's Institutional Profile System (IPS), Student Application and Information Management System (SAIMS), Matriculating Student Questionnaire (MSQ), and Medical School Graduation Questionnaire (GQ). The 1994 GQ was used as the index instrument to make the correlations reported in this article. A number of findings emerged concerning the 1994 graduates. A greater percentage of these students who began medical school with strong research career intentions and maintained these intentions had entered private medical schools. The lower rate of research interest amongst the students enrolled in public medical schools was compounded by the significantly greater loss of earlier research intentions of those in public schools compared with those in private schools. Medical students attending high-powered research schools—institutions with high levels of research expenditures, large numbers of graduate students in the basic sciences, and medical scientist training programs (MSTPs)—were more likely to have stronger research intentions on admission and to hold onto their interests. Students attending schools with strong research environments were more likely to gain research interests if they did not have them before. Graduating students declaring interests in research fellowship training and eventual academic and research careers were more likely to have participated in research projects and to have authored research papers during medical school. Research career ambitions were associated with practice preferences for the medical and surgical specialties, and were muted amongst graduating students heading for generalist careers. These preliminary findings, though from a single class of graduates, reinforce the notion that, in the interest of cultivating the research leanings of students, medical schools might provide greater opportunities for research and independent study during the continuum of undergraduate education. And they raise a concern that shifting the emphasis in medical school toward generalist careers will diminish the output of graduates with research intentions. Acad. Med. 70(1995):847–852.