Personality, Resilience, and Calling in Students Undertaking a Medical Degree Across Two Continents: Disparate Pathways to the Healing Profession
Abstract
Background: An educational partnership between The University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia and Ochsner Health in the United States developed the UQ-Ochsner medical program that trains American citizens to practice medicine in the United States. This program provides the opportunity to explore and compare the personal characteristics of UQ-Ochsner students with their domestic (Australian citizen) and international classmates not enrolled in the Ochsner program. Findings may offer some insights into the types of students who choose to study medicine across multiple countries. Methods: We used a quantitative cross-sectional design for our study. A first-year cohort of domestic, international, and UQ-Ochsner students completed a survey comprising demographic questions and measures of temperament and character personality, resilience, and calling to medicine. Univariate statistics were used to compare groups for all variables. Results: The whole sample response rate was 72.1% (375/520). Domestic students represented the greatest proportion of students 0.3). Conclusion: UQ-Ochsner students have a personality profile similar to their classmates but with levels of certain traits—higher self-directedness and lower harm avoidance—that in combination contribute to higher resilience and a strong sense of calling to medicine. Being slightly older may allow for more development of self-directedness, but low harm avoidance suggests an innate degree of confidence in and acceptance of…
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