Specialty choice, stress and personality: their relationships over time.

A longitudinal questionnaire study of 314 medical students followed up as preregistration house officers (PRHOs) and again 7 years later showed laboratory-based doctors were the least happy with their choice of career and were the most stressed now, while surgeons were the most happy with their choice and the least stressed. These differences were apparent 10 years earlier. The study also describes perceived influences on specialty choice and explores how earlier factors, such as personality as students and stress in the PRHO year, may also have influenced specialty choice.