I would say that the average emergency physician tends to be inventive, efficient, energetic, friendly, and confident.
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ACEP News: Vol 30 – No 07 – July 2011
Did you ever have an idea that you thought was really great? A breakthrough, an epiphany. And then, when you started to implement this gift in the world, you realized that it would not work. Me too. I’ve lost count of the number of these little disappointments I have experienced.
There is no shame in this type of failure. Thomas Edison tried many filaments before he perfected his version of the light bulb. Every truly great idea is preceded by a few bad ones.
My most recent bad idea was to suggest that we ask the applicants to the Univerisity of Toledo Medical Center EM residency program to complete a brief personality inventory as part of the interview process. I figured that if we could identify specific personality traits such as compassion, emotional stability, and perseverance, this would be a good thing. The offspring of this idea was to do a longitudinal study.
When I raised this in a meeting, one of the faculty suggested that such a test might turn off prospective residents and make them less likely to rank us highly. So before I devoted much time to my great idea, I spent some time quizzing residents and medical students. Another light bulb tossed in the trash.
I forgot that it is 2011 and not 1981. It is a different generation, and when this generation has an opinion about something, the rest of the world knows quicker than one can mow the yard.
So it was a bad idea. I still have a strong interest in how personality affects our performance in our chosen specialty. Most people in the medical field have made the observation that certain specialties attract certain personality types. Family doctors, for the most part, are friendly, sensitive, and easy-going. Surgeons are, well … not. Neurologists tend to be more introverted and cerebral (duh).
I’ve tried to think of the personality traits that make good emergency physicians. This is more complicated than I imagined. To keep it simple, I referred to the Big 5 Personality test. This test is commonly used in industry, and apparently nobody gets offended. This test looks at openness (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious), conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. easy-going/careless), extraversion (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved), agreeableness (friendly/compassionate vs. cold/unkind), and neuroticism (sensitive/nervous vs. secure/confident).
High levels of emotional intelligence are needed in our field. In no other job would one have to tell a 50-year-old woman her husband had been shot in the head by a disgruntled employee, and the next moment greet with a smile a mother and her three urchins who all have a viral upper respiratory infection. More than any other specialty, I believe that emergency physicians need to strike a balance in these five areas while tending toward certain traits.
I would say that the average emergency physician tends to be inventive, efficient, energetic, friendly, and confident. An extreme of any one of these traits, however, could lead to problems. Overly compassionate doctors will burn out if they cry everyone’s tears. Overly outgoing doctors may be perceived as too flamboyant and unprofessional. Overly organized people may lack flexibility.
I believe that tending toward these above five traits probably makes for a better emergency physician. Not all are required, of course. I tend toward introversion and seem to get along just fine (as long as people just leave me alone).
It’s safe to say that it’s best that certain personalities avoid working in the ED. Overly cautious or neurotic doctors seem to be fish out of water in the ED. People who are thin-skinned and disorganized usually end up crying in the bathroom. It’s a tragedy when doctors choose a specialty that ill-fits their personality.
If it were not for the possibility of being labeled as the “crazy program,” I still think it would be a good idea to have more objective information about personality. Whether the candidates realize it or not, we make a judgment about their personalities during the interview process. I would rather have more objective information.
Deciding on a specialty is a difficult decision. Sometime during their 1-month rotation in our ED, I usually raise the issue with medical students about what they want to do when they grow up. I tell them that if they feel like a stranger in a foreign land where nobody seems like them, that specialty is probably not for them. This is quite subjective as well. I believe students could use more objective information.
My timing for this proposed test may be completely off. I remember taking a career aptitude test in junior high. Maybe medical schools should administer a personality inventory at the end of the second year of medical school. This would give the candidate information about what specialties would be a good fit with their personality traits. This doesn’t mean that extremely sensitive students should not consider general surgery. It would just give them another piece of information to help them make their decision.
Some schools may administer this test already. For this information to be valuable, however, students need to be given information about how their personality type would function in various work environments and specialties. Finally, having a skilled educator help them interpret the information and serve as a sounding board completes the loop.
Now there’s an idea.
Dr. Baehren lives in Ottawa Hills, Ohio. He practices emergency medicine and is an assistant professor at the University of Toledo (Ohio) Medical Center. Your feedback is welcome at David.Baehren@utoledo.edu.
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