Personality Types in Anesthesiology

Started by WhateverMang
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What is your personality type?

  • ISTJ

    Votes: 11 12.6%

  • ISTP

    Votes: 5 5.7%

  • ISFJ

    Votes: 4 4.6%

  • ISFP

    Votes: 1 1.1%

  • INTJ

    Votes: 24 27.6%

  • INTP

    Votes: 2 2.3%

  • INFJ

    Votes: 9 10.3%

  • INFP

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • ESTJ

    Votes: 7 8.0%

  • ESTP

    Votes: 1 1.1%

  • ESFJ

    Votes: 5 5.7%

  • ESFP

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • ENTJ

    Votes: 6 6.9%

  • ENTP

    Votes: 6 6.9%

  • ENFJ

    Votes: 2 2.3%

  • ENFP

    Votes: 4 4.6%
  • Total voters
    87
WhateverMang

WhateverMang

Full Member
Verified Member
15+ Year Member
Hello all,

MS3 here trying to decide on a specialty. I was on the AAMC careers in medicine website today and they have different surveys you can take to help you figure out which specialty is best for you. One of the surveys asks you which of the 16 personality types you are then gives you a list of specialties that commonly share your type. I'm an ENFP and the listed specialties for my personality type are Neurology (yuck), Ob/Gyn (yuck), Peds (meh), Psych (understandable).

I'm very much interested in Anesthesiology though and was curious what personality types you residents and attendings are. Here's the link to find out your type: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp It would be nice to know that I'm not the only ENFP wanting to do gas. Please vote in the poll!

Thanks!
 
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I used the CiM page a little during my pre-clinical years. It's ok, but not great. There is no reason to think that you can summarize your personality into a 4 letter acronym, and that so doing will accurately predict your likelihood of enjoying/being good at anesthesiology. Nobody on here is going to spend 15 minutes filling out a Meyers-Brigg questionnaire to answer your survey. It's harsh but true.

The only way to find out if you like it and if it's a good match is to do it. Do as many rotations as your school has and will allow. Do a few ICU rotations to see if you enjoy that aspect of medicine.

You will find on this forum that there are a wide range of personalities. There are quiet, aquiescent types, others who prefer to be BIG and UP FRONT, snarky folks, and everything in between. There is no "anesthesia personality", that I have seen. Generally anesthesiologists are pretty affable people, but that does not mean we are pushovers.

As the old Nike slogan put it: just do it. Try out the specialty and don't trust the CiM page.
 
geogil said:
I used the CiM page a little during my pre-clinical years. It's ok, but not great. There is no reason to think that you can summarize your personality into a 4 letter acronym, and that so doing will accurately predict your likelihood of enjoying/being good at anesthesiology. Nobody on here is going to spend 15 minutes filling out a Meyers-Brigg questionnaire to answer your survey. It's harsh but true.

The only way to find out if you like it and if it's a good match is to do it. Do as many rotations as your school has and will allow. Do a few ICU rotations to see if you enjoy that aspect of medicine.

You will find on this forum that there are a wide range of personalities. There are quiet, aquiescent types, others who prefer to be BIG and UP FRONT, snarky folks, and everything in between. There is no "anesthesia personality", that I have seen. Generally anesthesiologists are pretty affable people, but that does not mean we are pushovers.

As the old Nike slogan put it: just do it. Try out the specialty and don't trust the CiM page.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. Good to know there are a wide range of personalities. I'm starting a 1 week (way too short I know) anesthesiology rotation on Monday actually. I have a month long 4th year rotation starting in late Aug too but I really need to decide what I'm going into so that I can figure out how to plan my 4th year. I don't get ICU until January though but during my internal medicine rotation, I really enjoyed my MICU experience. I'm guessing SICU is similar right? I'm not sure I had an "aha" moment or whatever but when one of our patients started coding and everyone started going nuts I was in awe of the senior resident who told everyone to shut up, calm down and then start doing what he said as he was running to code... dictating drips and ensuring that chest compressions continued etc... I wanted to be that guy.
 
These Meyers-Briggs posts seem to come up on a regular basis. It should be said that the test has no scientific basis, is not generally used in the world of academic psychology, and beyond its differentiation of extroversion and introversion, does not correlate with methods of personality testing that are considered valid. A third to a half of people change MBTI types when they retake the test a few months later.

Looking at the history of the test, it makes sense why the test is BS. It basically comes down to one nonpsychologist's armchair observations of Carl Jung's own nonempiric writings, which are basically his own armchair hypothesizing with some bits lifted from Mahayana Buddhism. In other words, it's as far from science (or even "social science") as you can get.

You would not use an invalid pop-science test to diagnose your patient - why would you let it influence your career choice?
 
I scored as an INTP. Dunno the significance of that where career track is concerned.
 
I'm a "Mechanic;" surprisingly the only one so far. Fixing a fuel line pressure, fixing a peak airway pressure; not much of a stretch. All about "detailed logical analysis" which clearly explains why Obama gives me such a massive headache.
 
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Reppin' the INTJ party. Although I thought that I had heard that studies have more or less destroyed the reliability of the Myers-Briggs?
 
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