The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Medical Student Residency Specialty Selection

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the medical community, including in the way that medical students are educated. While media outlets have portrayed health care workers actively battling this disease, there has been little to no discussion of how the pandemic has affected medical students. Currently practicing physicians chose their specialties long before the threat of this novel coronavirus was known. It is unclear how the pandemic may change the mindset of current medical students and their decisions regarding their choice of residency specialty following graduation. Study Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine if the COVID19 pandemic has affected future residency specialty choices for current M.D. candidate students. Methods: In September 2020, a brief (approximately 3 minute) anonymous survey of first through fourth-year medical students was created utilizing Qualtrics software and emailed via medical school listservs. Survey questions included basic demographics, what residency specialty they plan to pursue, and what residency specialty they planned to pursue prior to the COVID19 pandemic. The electronic survey was disseminated to current M.D. candidate students (first year [MS-1] through fourth year [MS-4]) at a large, suburban medical school in New Jersey with over 600 students over four clinical and pre-clinical years. A 14 day period was provided for medical students to complete the survey, with a reminder sent to students at the 7 day mark. Results: A total of 87 medical students responded to the survey. Of those that responded, 21% were MS-1, 18% were MS-2, 29% were MS-3, and 29% were MS-4. Eighty-six participants chose to report a sex. Of those, 60% identified as female. Seventy percent of those who responded knew someone personally who was negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Eleven respondents intended to go into emergency medicine. Five medical students planned on selecting a different residency specialty based on the pandemic. Of those, two had initially planned to pursue emergency medicine and changed specialties based on the pandemic (to radiology and ophthalmology). Of the remaining students, they made the following changes in specialty: psychiatry to anesthesiology, orthopedic to general surgery, and obstetrics/gynecology to undecided. Of these five students who switched specialties, 4 (80%) knew someone negatively affected by COVID-19. Conclusions: Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the effect it has had on medical student education, the majority of current medical students who responded to this survey have not let it affect their decision regarding which residency specialty to pursue. Of the small sample of students in this survey that did change their decision regarding residency specialty, two students made the decision to switch from emergency medicine to radiology and ophthalmology.