Types of Medical Students.

Different kinds of students experience the medical school environment in different ways, pay attention to different things, perceive the same events in different ways, and consequently make various kinds of career commitments. Who is affected by what kinds of experience to become what kind of physician? The taxonomic method used identifies different types of problem-solving systems of medical students and instigates their differential behavior in the medical school setting. The different types of problem – solving systems are identified on the basis of what are considered"personality" indices, such as: (1) extraversion vs introversion; (2) rule-bound vs unconstrained; (3) feeling vs thinking; (4) divergence vs. conventionality of thought; and (5) anxiety vs adjustment. Twelve relatively homogeneous types were identified in a group of medical students at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Definite patterns of characteristics emerged for the twelve types.