Dr Coombs's purpose was to ascertain how medical students adapt (ie, become "socialized") in the milieu of a medical school. He therefore conducted a long-term study of one class attending a school in the eastern United States. The study included preadmission questionnaires; psychological testing during orientation week and again during senior year; individual, long taped interviews at the end of each school year; and a mailed questionnaire about specialty choice. In addition, the author interviewed trainees in a West Coast school and conducted a week-long conference ("Psychosocial Aspects of Medical Training") attended by faculty members who represented 60 North American schools. The relatively small study class cooperated amazingly well throughout the entire endeavor. The results of their participation and of other aspects of the study enabled Dr Coombs to prepare an extraordinarily complete systematic report about what happens to students between the time before they start and the time after
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Hugh H. Hussey (1978) studied this question.