Any ENFP or INFP med students?

[sloop]

Call it what you like, but I know a lot of ENTJs with identical viewpoints and I could spot these thought patterns, motivations, and perspectives a mile away from your writing. Typical ENTJ. I also know how exactly to work with you. I know never to talk about my fantastical aspirations or dreams, to get my s*** together and be efficient and goal-oriented around you, get the job done and not ask questions, and not to bother trying to argue with you because you are extremely invested in winning and good at it. You traffic in logic, and emotions are perceived by you as weakness and excuses. Other people's suffering is perceived as weakness and excuses. If you haven't experienced it or thought it up or done it yourself, you don't believe it. Your way is the Right way. You want and need to be in control all the time or it irks you. You are a great leader and organizer with a view of the big picture and a great intellect. Empathy does not come naturally to you because you think there is one right way to do things (the best way, the way you do them, of course), and others are Wrong. Step 2 CS-type exercises to you are exercises in bull****. I work well with your type because I understand it, even if you assert that these types are made up. They can be useful and predictive with enough insight. We all have room for improvement and seeing things from others' perspectives is one that behooves a physician even if you find it inefficient.

This stuff is only half true for me. I can follow and do my part until it starts getting inefficient, then I will assume leadership. I have no desire to be in a position of power/control/authority and prefer to work collaboratively unless it becomes inefficient or outrageously boring. I love to teach and actually like when people ask me questions if they are actually interested in learning. Unfortunately, in third year, lots of fellow students ask questions they already know the answers to in order to impress residents, etc. This **** is obvious to me and it annoys me a lot.

I care about suffering a lot, especially patients'. I'm actually great at empathy/patient rapport and it is one of my most consistently positive comments on evaluations.

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[The_Sunny_Doc]

To all the MBTI haters out there: points taken. If it helps you to better understand, predict the world around you, and interact with others, use it. If not, don't.



Me too!! Why, hello!

I think our 'type' brings to medicine a very strong sense of moral obligation to do the best possible by the patient, both medically and otherwise (socially, spiritually, personally, etc.). I think we are our own worst critics, push ourselves extremely hard, but often in the service of some noble ideal and vision of betterment of the human condition. I wonder if we are extremely sensitive to burnout. My SO is an ENFP (surg resident) and we both struggle a lot with the rewards of patient care, on one hand, but the larger question of greater meaning, on the other (whether or not the daily deluges of organizational details and tasks and the 'actual work' of the profession are as profoundly meaningful as we had hoped…). We both still dream of becoming astronomers or global health experts or teachers or evolutionary biologists sometimes…

As of now, I'd say I'd pick the same path again. Ask me again next year as an intern.

For him, well into surgical subspecialty residency, I'm not so sure. Being able to offer unbelievable curative surgical treatments is awesome; his patients, their connections with him, their stories and gratitude light up his day. The extremely varied nature of his profession and the knowledge and expertise required keeps him constantly learning and interested. The surgical culture and extraordinary organizational skills required, as well as the extreme hours and utter lack of creativity that it entails most of the time often crush him.

I think he is one of the very rare -NFP types who found their way into surgery--not because they aren't good at it, but because there are so many personality and culture mismatches along the way to dissuade many of these people early on. He will be unique and great when finished, and patients adore him, but certainly has gotten pretty ground up in the process.

On one hand, medical training helps our 'types' address our weaknesses. This is good. On the other, it could potentially be suffocating. I say certainly look for the specialties within medicine that jive with at least part of who you already are; there are many choices.

The learning is absolutely NOT rote memorization if you have a keen mind and a desire to put the details together into a complex picture; to be one of the best students, you absolutely require this type of synthetic understanding. When things click, they are fascinating. How much time for love of learning remains in residency? TBD.

Thanks for contributing to this thread. As an ENFP, I, like your SO, have a great fondness for healthy, well-balanced INFPs. We speak the same language and generally share a similar sense of humor.

Your SO is definitely a rare type within the surgical field! I often wonder how I'll be able to handle the administrative details and hierarchy of working within a hospital system, so I'm glad you shared how your SO feels about such aspects of life as a resident. Do you think he'll eventually find an outlet for his creative streak, or do you think surgery isn't a field that lends itself to divergent, experimental thought processes? Could he become a physician inventor?

What did you say your specialty was?

 

[The_Sunny_Doc]

A reply to myself two years later:

Just as an update, I now think MBTI is completely BS.
I looked up Jung's work and the introduction is literally full of his surmisations. He goes along and says things like, you know...in my mind there just seems to be these kinds of people and then those kinds of people...there's nothing empirical to back up his claims. The reason why I think it gets so much attention is because it makes each of us feel unique in our own way and gives us a profile of unique strengths that we already think we have based upon our responses. There's not much negative in the MBTI descriptions either. Right now MBTI is one of the leading brands that is doing this so there's a lot of attention paid to it. Take "The Big Five" test as an alternative. I'm not saying it's better but I've heard it has more respect in the psych community and when I took it I was told I was neurotic and a bunch of other things which turned me off immediately. MBTI is also really a trap for a lot of introspective people who like to try to come up with trends and extensions off of MBTI.


That said, it may be interesting to do a study of self reported MBTI vs. predicted vs. eventual specialty.
Maybe if we have a huge amount of data there, we can start seeing some correlations.

MBTI can greatly improve the way you communicate with people of other types. It has certainly facilitated better communication and greater understanding in my relationships, both at work and at home. It's simply a tool.

 

[The_Sunny_Doc]

Call it what you like, but I know a lot of ENTJs with identical viewpoints and I could spot these thought patterns, motivations, and perspectives a mile away from your writing. Typical ENTJ. I also know how exactly to work with you. I know never to talk about my fantastical aspirations or dreams, to get my s*** together and be efficient and goal-oriented around you, get the job done and not ask questions, and not to bother trying to argue with you because you are extremely invested in winning and good at it. You traffic in logic, and emotions are perceived by you as weakness and excuses. Other people's suffering is perceived as weakness and excuses. If you haven't experienced it or thought it up or done it yourself, you don't believe it. Your way is the Right way. You want and need to be in control all the time or it irks you. You are a great leader and organizer with a view of the big picture and a great intellect. Empathy does not come naturally to you because you think there is one right way to do things (the best way, the way you do them, of course), and others are Wrong.

Sounds a bit like my ENTJ cousin. She in an attorney. Perfect match for her type!

Having -NF parents and an -NF little sister have greatly softened her up, though. She works hard at showing sympathy and trying to put herself in others' shoes.

 

[neolandrover]

I'm an INFP, 4th year med student. Going into psychiatry. No other medical specialty choice even came close.

 

[FlowRate]

Meh, these tests may be silly, but I feel like ENTP does describe me pretty well. Also headed into psych.

 

[buonassezia]

Thanks for contributing to this thread. As an ENFP, I, like your SO, have a great fondness for healthy, well-balanced INFPs. We speak the same language and generally share a similar sense of humor.

Your SO is definitely a rare type within the surgical field! I often wonder how I'll be able to handle the administrative details and hierarchy of working within a hospital system, so I'm glad you shared how your SO feels about such aspects of life as a resident. Do you think he'll eventually find an outlet for his creative streak, or do you think surgery isn't a field that lends itself to divergent, experimental thought processes? Could he become a physician inventor?

What did you say your specialty was?

I definitely agree about the sense of humor! My ENFP calls at the end of a long day and tells me slews of bad jokes. It seems he has one for every scenario imaginable, and I enjoy (or groan at) nearly all of them. We have innumerable dumb inside jokes, and find the irony and puns in situations that make others just give us a weird look. Very enjoyable. On the flipside, our house will always be messy and we will both eternally struggle to notice that the stove needs cleaning or it is the day to pay the electric bill…


I hope he will find fulfillment in surgery, and actually things are looking up lately. The extraordinarily complex procedures with tons of reconstruction certainly demand some ingenuity and mastery of anatomy, and he has found a niche in that. The education piece--teaching other residents and students--is also a great niche in which he finds inspiration. In terms of research, he loves asking the questions but only variably enjoys the methodical follow-through that's usually the meat of the work (I can relate). Maybe the creativity outlet will come with time, in teaching, and perhaps development of new approaches or devices for these complex surgeries. I think as he's advancing in training, the "E" and "F" aspects are increasingly fulfilled as patients connect with him in clinic, and later delight in their outcomes after lifesaving procedures. So, we'll see!


I'm going into Internal Medicine.

 

[The_Sunny_Doc]

*bump*

Interested in seeing what other -NFPs are specializing in.

My top four as of now are as follows:
Family Medicine
Internal Medicine (Endocrinology)
Psychiatry
Ob-gyn

I like a little excitement, but find critical care depressing. The hospital is energizing just because of all the people with which to interact, but dealing with the management of advanced stage chronic disease is not where I feel called to make a difference. Preventive/Lifestyle Medicine looks very appealing.

Am gravitating towards an academic center where there are lots of opportunities to interact with specialist physicians and teach.

So glad to be finished with the preclinical years. Spending so many hours cooped up in the lecture hall was not my idea of fun. Hell for ENFPs is sitting down and listening to someone talk at them and not being able to talk back for hours on end.

 

[TheIllusionist]

ENTP brahs. masterdebater, pissing off doctors and getting along better with lawyers since day 1 crew

 

[The_Sunny_Doc]

ENTP brahs. masterdebater, pissing off doctors and getting along better with lawyers since day 1 crew

Not surprised at all by this! I dated a lawyer who’s an ENTP. What specialty are you looking at? The ENTP preceptors I had were in IM and Psych.

 

[deleted103644]

Isn't Meyers-Briggs mostly BS?

I’m a Slytherin.

 

[TheIllusionist]

Not surprised at all by this. Was just dating a lawyer who’s an ENTP. What specialty are you looking at? The ENTP preceptors I had were in IM and Psych.

electrophysiology, rad onc, heme onc, allergy immuno,

I'm Special ED with my hands, as of right now. So no surgery, but we shall see.

aka something mechanism heavy

I'm a slytherin too. Many med students are idealistic hufflesnuffers. They're largely in the feelings over facts crew. And I'm a liberal saying that

They do stuff like equating memory with intellect, and gushing in sadness over the fact that a woman with a hysterectomy cant have her own kids, even though the surgery saved her life and took her cancer away, and she can still totally adopt with empathy. At the same time, many of those kids don't give a rat's ass about volunteering or keeping up with global events, especially atrocities

I like to screw with them and stay stuff like: I don't think dyslexics should get any extra STEP1 time. life is about being tough; the first two years of med school are dumb anyway, they should just have step1 as the entrance test and a 3month intro purely clinical course. Then they rant about being inspired bt some relative's death or something equally unrelated. it is quite fun to rustle jimmies.

 

[TrueConjecture]

I understand WHY many medical schools will make their new MS1's take the MBTI test (they have good intentions), but I don't think it's truly useful so early in the process. I also don't think it's useful for clinical rotations or even when selecting a specialty. All types can be very successful in medical school (i.e. think: AOA), I saw it in my own class.

I've been an ESTJ every. single. time I have taken the test. Read about how delightful we are to work with.

I think true Myers-Briggs relevance comes in residency and beyond. You're no longer getting "graded" at every moment, and sometimes you'll be in a workroom with just 2 or 3 people for hours while working your butt off. Maybe for 2 or 4 full weeks. I hated intern year. True to my ESTJ self, I realized I wanted to be "in charge" and for every aspect of the patient's care to be organized, but only discovered this after medical school and I had a lot of medical things to learn before I could do that. Since then, I have seen a lot of truth in MBTI types and predicting how you will get along with your attending, your intern, etc. Chemistry drives most interactions. And there were just some attendings during my training with whom I was never going to get along. Ever. Period. One was completely in charge of the program and department. Think I was ever offered a job to work there? Nope.

At this stage of the game, have fun with the classification scheme, but don't let it drive your decision-making. Dust it off when you're a resident and fellow when you have no explanation for why your attending hates you, or when you randomly jive so well with another trainee who has nothing in common with you.

 

[mehc012]

It's definitely not all telling but it has it's uses and it is quite interesting to look into. If you think it's B.S. look into why and give your opinion as to why. -INFP, but pre-med so this probably won't help much. I look forward to medical school but remember to keep myself hard-working and humble as I am an bit of an idealist. I feel like problems I may have are pretty much what everyone has. Difficulty with the details...though I hope focusing on the big picture can make make all the details stick better.

My biggest issue with it is that I get a different result every time I take the damn thing. I'm either borderline on half the traits, or else I am a mix of the extremes at either end...for example, they often ask about travel. Well, I overplan every detail before I leave...and then once I'm actually on the trip I ignore all of that and wing it. I enjoy myself better when I go with the flow, but the prior planning makes me feel less anxious about having no actual concrete itinerary. That doesn't translate well on a 1-5 scale about whether I plan my trips, lol.
I'm an extrovert with massive social anxiety, so I give conflicting answers throughout any/all of their socialization questions.
And so on.

I have literally never gotten the same Myers-Briggs outcome 2 times in a row.

 

[The_Sunny_Doc]

My biggest issue with it is that I get a different result every time I take the damn thing. I'm either borderline on half the traits, or else I am a mix of the extremes at either end...for example, they often ask about travel. Well, I overplan every detail before I leave...and then once I'm actually on the trip I ignore all of that and wing it. I enjoy myself better when I go with the flow, but the prior planning makes me feel less anxious about having no actual concrete itinerary. That doesn't translate well on a 1-5 scale about whether I plan my trips, lol.
I'm an extrovert with massive social anxiety, so I give conflicting answers throughout any/all of their socialization questions.
And so on.

I have literally never gotten the same Myers-Briggs outcome 2 times in a row.

How old were you when you took the test? If you’re still figuring out who you are, I could see how you might answer differently every time you take it. The test questions are all written a little differently too.

If you want a consistent result, ditch the test and study Dr. Jung’s cognitive functions. If you understand the functions, you don’t need to take the test. Isabelle Myers watered all the theory down to a bunch of questions so that people wouldn’t have to wrap their heads around the 8 functions, which are as follows:

Extraverted intuition (Ne)
Introverted intuition (Ni)
Extraverted sensing (Se)
Introverted Sensing (Si)
Extraverted Feeling (Fe)
Introverted Feeling (Fi)
Extraverted Thinking (Te)
Introverted Thinking (Ti)

Your functional stack has four functions, two introverted and two extroverted. “Extroverts” has an extraveted function as their primary function, and introverts have an introverted function at the top. So Extroverts have Ne, Fe, Se, or Te as their first function and vice versa for the introverted types.

Hope that helped to explain how you can delve into your type further.

 

[mehc012]

How old were you when you took the test? If you’re still figuring out who you are, I could see how you might answer differently every time you take it. The tests are a little different too. The human metrics test seems to be the most popular form online.

I’ve gotten the exact same MBTI result every time. Once you get familiar with the types, you can type people extremely accurately. The best way to learn about your own type and others is to look into Jung’s cognitive functions. If you understand the functions, you don’t need to take the test. Isabelle Myers watered all the theory down to a bunch of questions so that people wouldn’t have to wrap their heads around the 8 functions, which are as follows:

Extraverted intuition (Ne)
Introverted intuition (Ni)
Extraverted sensing (Se)
Introverted Sensing (Si)
Extraverted Feeling (Fe)
Introverted Feeling (Fi)
Extraverted Thinking (Te)
Introverted Thinking (Ti)

Your functional stack has four functions, two introverted and two extroverted. “Extroverts” has an extraveted function as their primary function, and introverts have an introverted function at the top. So Extroverts have Ne, Fe, Se, or Te as their first function and vice versa for the introverted types.

Hope that helped to explain how you can delve into your type further! Personalityjunkie is an awesome resource for figuring out which type you are. Read the descriptions for the types you’re back in forth between and see which one describes you best in terms of functions.

-NFPs are sister types. They have all the same functions, just in a different order. That’s why I asked how both types are faring in medicine!

ENFP’s functional stack: Ne-Fi-Te-Si
INFP’s: Fi-Ne-Si-Te

Types are partially genetic. My mom is an ENFP, my dad is an INFP, my sibling is an ENTJ, and I’m an ENFP.

The utility of typing people lies in facilitating better communication, because people of all different types can click with each other ther if they can learn to speak the other types’ language and respect their innate qualities.

I get different answers taking the same test on consecutive days. This has been true since early college when we had to do it for a class and I forgot to print out the results page or something, so I had to retake it and was surprised when the answer was completely different. I answer all of the questions honestly and try to go with my gut instinct, but they're often a close judgement call.

I understand how the tet works, but I don't even consistently get introverted vs extraverted, so it's pretty damn useless for me.

 

[hamstergang]

There are people who study personality and how to assess it for a living. They'll tell you that MBTI is not a valid or reliable test, even if some people feel it "works" for them. We don't have to guess at this -- there's a science involved and the outcome is already clear.