Positive predictive value of medical student specialty choices

BMC Medical Education

Table 3 Step 1 scores for students with postgraduate training in specialties less, equal or more competitive than 1st choices at end of year 2

Postgraduate Training Specialty	Positions per US Senior²⁶	Specialty less competitive than year 2 choice			Specialty equally competitive as year 2 choice			Specialty more competitive than year 2 choice			Kruskal-Wallis P
Postgraduate Training Specialty	Positions per US Senior²⁶	N	%	Step 1 Score, Median [IQR]^a	N	%	Step 1 Score, Median [IQR]	N	%	Step 1 Score, Median [IQR]
All Specialties	–	95	28.4	228 [208, 239]	150	44.9	228 [217, 243]	89	26.7	237 [218, 248]	0.02^a
Anesthesiology	1.37	17	41.5	228 [215, 238]	6	14.6	244 [225, 245]	18	43.9	230 [221, 243]	0.29
Emergency Medicine	1.17	1	2.4	212 [n/a]	27	65.9	230 [217, 238]	13	31.7	241[220, 256]	0.11
Family Medicine	2.20	19	47.5	206 [199, 223]	21	52.5	225 [209, 236]	0	0	–	0.05^b
Internal Medicine	1.88	28	43.8	233 [224, 246]	32	50.0	238 [222, 248]	4	6.3	245 [239, 252]	0.39
Obstetrics & Gynecology	1.22	3	13.0	228 [219, 229]	9	39.1	237 [231, 242]	11	47.8	217[207, 237]	0.16
Pediatrics	1.42	3	8.6	229 [186, 246]	24	68.6	223 [215, 236]	8	22.9	223[209, 238]	0.97
Psychiatry	1.81	9	40.9	210 [200, 230]	6	27.3	206 [205, 221]	7	31.8	219 [201, 244]	0.76
Surgery	1.12	2	11.1	230 [223, 236]	12	66.7	222 [212, 230]	4	22.2	243 [234, 248]	0.14

IQR Interquartile Range
^aWilcoxon Rank Sums test for pairwise difference between more vs less competitive groups, P = 0.004; more vs equally competitive groups, P = 0.05
^bWilcoxon Rank Sums test for pairwise difference between less vs equally competitive groups, P = 0.05

ISSN: 1472-6920