ArticleCroatian medical journal2025
Personality traits and medical specialty preference among medical students and graduates: a scoping review.
Article in Croatian medical journal, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Behavioral Profiles in Romanian Resident Physicians: An Exploratory Study with Implications for Medical Education and Human Resource Development.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Influence of personality traits and clinical role models on changes in medical students' attitudes toward psychiatry: a prospective moderation analysis.Scientific reports · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimTo review the available research on the association between personality traits and specialty choice.
methodsA systematic search of MEDLINE, ERIC, Scopus, PsycINFO, and Web of Science was performed in June 2022 and updated on August 18, 2025. Studies were eligible if they examined the association between personality traits and specialty choice among medical students and graduates using validated psychological tests. The protocol was registered at the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/su6md). Screening, eligibility assessment, and data extraction were performed independently by two reviewers.
resultsA total of 9212 articles were retrieved, of which 61 met the inclusion criteria. Considerable heterogeneity in study design, instruments used, and outcomes assessed precluded quantitative synthesis. Most studies indicated associations between personality traits and specialty choice, although findings were inconsistent. Surgery was the most frequently assessed specialty, with several studies reporting higher impulsivity, higher extraversion, higher openness to new experiences, and a lower desire to work with people among students choosing surgery. Psychiatry, internal medicine, and family medicine were also frequently examined, but associations varied across studies. Methodological limitations were common, including reliance on cross-sectional designs, inconsistent measurement tools, and underreporting of psychometric properties.
conclusionEvidence suggests a relationship between personality traits and specialty choice; however, this evidence remains weak due to methodological shortcomings. Future studies should apply standardized measurements for both personality traits and specialty choice, with larger and more diverse samples.
Indexed as
Identifiers
41200942PMC12631570What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.