Textual analysis of internal medicine residency personal statements: themes and gender differences

Abstract

By applying textual analysis to material derived from a national cohort, we identified common narrative themes in the personal statements of future US physicians, noting differences between men and women. Together, these data provide novel insight into the dominant discourse of doctoring in this generation of students applying for further training in US IM residency programmes, and depict a diverse group of applicants with multiple motivations, desires and goals. Furthermore, differences seen between men and women add to the growing understanding of bias in medical education. Training programmes may benefit by adapting curricula to foster such diverse interests.