Medical school and the process of disillusionment

Summary A pilot study of the 1970 graduating class of Yale Medical School revealed that a group of medical students could be defined who seemed particularly dissatisfied with themselves and their profession (Schwartz & Slaby, 1971). For the most part, these medical students differed from their peers in that they contemplated an alternative career in the arts or letters and, while they retained many of the values of their colleagues, they differed from them in such a way as to convey the impression that they were more uncertain about their identity. The study dealt with these medical students at the point in their career at which they were about to become doctors. It seemed appropriate, as part of our larger study, in which we are attempting to follow changing values and patterns of behaviour among various groups of professionals and professional students (Slaby & Schwartz, 1971), to collect data on medical students during each of the 4 years of medical school. It was our purpose to determine whether the group of uncertain students comprised those students who had been in conflict about being at medical school and about their future role in medicine since their entrance into medical school, or whether the process of disenchantment evolved during the course of medical training. We explored if this process affected susceptible students during their clinical or pre‐clinical years, and report some of the manifestations of this disaffection.