Sci45 Speciality Choice Inventory

Open University Centre for Education in Medicine
£350+VAT
Users will need: Intel®Pentium®processor, 64 MB Ram, Windows 95
Rating: ***

The Open University has produced an interactive CD Rom package that uses psychometric testing to help medical students and junior doctors select a specialty that best fits with their own attitudes, aspirations, and personal characteristics. Aimed particularly at preregistration house officers and senior house officers, but suitable for all those in the final years of their medical training, Sci45 Speciality Choice Inventory is meant to augment any existing careers advice available to young doctors. As the program points out, most doctors have an approach that is very oriented to the present and give little consideration to what it would be like to work at the higher levels of their chosen specialty. Also, many training systems require selection of a career path at an early stage, with relatively little chance to reconsider at a later date. So, barring a Harry Potter-esque sorting hat, the more informed your choice the better.

Sci45 requires the user to comment on 130 statements beginning: “I want to work in a speciality that ...,” by choosing among “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “agree,” or “strongly agree” (up to 5 skips are allowed). The questions are designed to identify which of 80 job attributes you value most highly and then correlates this to job suitability. The program currently includes 46 specialties, and an expansion of this selection is planned for future versions.

Results are presented as a personal profile that shows how strongly you score in 12 different areas, such as academic orientation and coping with uncertainty, and that contains a page with recommendations. The results are surprisingly easy to interpret thanks to handy explanation boxes. But by far the most interesting are the recommendations. These are listed as the 10 specialties that fit your personal profile most closely, followed by those that match it least.

We found this an interesting way to spend 10-15 minutes, but it was frustrating that there was no neutral option. One thing to mention is that this is not a program that would be bought by an individual (it costs about £350), but it might make a useful addition to the medical school library.

Anja Weidmann, third year medical student,

Bruno Rushforth, third year medical student, Manchester University
Email: Mmmp8bjr@fs2.scg.man.ac.uk


studentBMJ 2002;10:259-302 August ISSN 0966-6494