Experiences of early graduate medical students working in New York hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study

Table 1 Baseline characteristics of early graduate medical students who worked as COVID-19 junior physicians and those who did not, May 2020^a

Characteristic:	Junior physician (n = 39)	Non-junior physician (n = 20)	P^b	Cramer’s V^c
Age, mean [SD], years	28 [2]	27 [2]	0.52	–
Gender, n (%)			0.71	–
Female	21 (54)	10 (50)
Male	16 (41)	10 (50)
Other	2 (5)	0
Matched GME specialty, n (%)			0.02	0.38
Surgical	19 (49)	7 (35)
Medical	14 (36)	3 (15)
Hospital-based	6 (15)	10 (50)
Distance to matched residency program, n (%)			0.58	–
< 50 miles	20 (51)	7 (35)
50 to 100 miles	5 (13)	2 (10)
101 to 200 miles	3 (8)	2 (10)
> 200 miles	11 (28)	9 (45)
Home cohabitants. n (%)			0.02	0.42
None	22 (56)	6 (32)
Significant other (SO)	11 (28)	3 (15)
Parents	6 (15)	8 (42)
Children and SO or parents	0	2 (11)
COVID-19 status prior to work period, n (%)
Tested positive	5 (13)	0	0.16	–
Family encouragement to work as JP, n (%)			0.02	0.35
Encouraged	7 (18)	0
Discouraged	10 (26)	11 (55)
Neither encouraged nor discouraged	22 (56)	9 (45)
Felt Pressure to Work as JP, n (%), yes	6 (15)	9 (45)	0.03	0.32

Abbreviations: COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019, GME Graduate Medical Education, IQR interquartile range, JP Junior Physician, SD standard deviation, SO significant other
^aIncludes sample of early medical school graduates eligible to work as Junior Physicians at NYU Langone Hospital – Long Island and Stony Brook University Hospital during the initial peak in cases in the COVID-19 pandemic in New York State
^bCategorical data were compared using the Fisher exact probability test. Continuous data (age) was compared using t tests for independent samples with an assumption of unequal variance
^cCramer’s V standard interpretation for effect size: small association [0.10–0.29]; medium association [0.30–0.49]; large association [0.50–1.00]

ISSN: 1472-6920