Characteristics of medical students and residents who select psychiatry : implications for recruitment.

Effective recruitment of psychiatric residents begins with understanding medical students' motivations for entering psychiatry. The author reviews the recent literature on the personalities of medical students interested in psychiatry compared with those interested in other specialties, the positive and negative factors that medical students cite when deciding whether to enter psychiatry, and the variables that are important to medical students and residents when selecting psychiatry residency programs. The implications of these studies for enhancing recruitment into psychiatry are discussed.