Assessing Entrepreneurial Characteristics of Healthcare Students Participating in an Entrepreneurial-Medicine Curriculum

As innovation transforms the healthcare industry, medical institutions are increasingly incorporating business skills and concepts into their curricula. The goal of this study was to characterize the types of students who engage in these supplemental curricula with respect to four entrepreneurial characteristics: entrepreneurial interest, support, confidence, and intention. We sampled students participating in a healthcare Innovation Summit using a validated survey to assess these characteristics. The sampled population reported significantly positive Interest and Support regarding an entrepreneurial career (5.18 and 5.80; p-values <0.01), whereas Intention and Confidence did not significantly differ from neutral (4.02 and 3.78; p>0.05). Individuals’ entrepreneurial Interest was significantly positively correlated with all other characteristics; demonstrated by Pearson’s Correlation Coefficients of 0.74, 0.62, and 0.59 when comparing sample means of Interest versus Intention, Confidence, and Support, (p-values <0.05). In addition, significant correlation between Intention and Confidence was observed (Pearson’s R = 0.78: p-values <0.05). Conversely, sample means for entrepreneurial Support were not significantly correlated with either Intent or Confidence (p-values >0.05). Our findings supply foundational data for understanding the growing cohort of individuals engaging in entrepreneurial-medicine. These data demonstrate the integrated nature of various entrepreneurial characteristics in these populations and support the idea that investment, which promotes one area, would translate to increases in others.