Careers in Medicine
(CiM)
AAMC Careers in Medicine Career Planning Program
Designed to help you choose a medical specialty and residency program.
This four-phase process from CiM will guide you through the elements of career planning, including self-understanding, exploring a variety of careers in medicine, and finally choosing a specialty to meet your career objectives. People whose choice of careers matches their values, skills, and interests tend to be more satisfied and successful in their working lives.
Self-Assessment Recommendations
The assessments below can be taken (or repeated) at any time during medical school.
Medical Specialty Preference Inventory (MSPI), Revised Edition
The assessment helps you identify your interests in medicine and recommends specialties that reflect those interests. The MSPI is a self-assessment that uses 150 items to measure your preference for various activities, tasks, and experiences found in the field of medicine and compares them to 16 specialties entered after medical school and to 18 areas of medical practice. Your results will provide you with a targeted starting point for further exploring specialty and practice options.
Estimated time to complete: 20–30 minutes.
Physician Values in Practice Scale (PVIPS)
The assessment helps you identify your interests in medicine and recommends specialties that reflect those interests. The MSPI is a self-assessment that uses 150 items to measure your preference for various activities, tasks, and experiences found in the field of medicine and compares them to 16 specialties entered after medical school and to 18 areas of medical practice. Your results will provide you with a targeted starting point for further exploring specialty and practice options.
Estimated time to complete: 10–15 minutes.
Physician Skills Inventory
The assessment helps you understand your skills in selected areas important to the work of a physician and identifies those areas where you can improve. This self-assessment uses 47 skill statements and descriptions to measure your strengths and weaknesses in three major transferrable skill areas: psychomotor, problem solving, and counseling skills. In addition to increasing your self-awareness, the results will improve your knowledge and understanding of the basic skills necessary for practicing medicine and help you identify areas for further development. You can also compare your skills to those of specialty groups as you consider specialty and practice options.
Estimated time to complete: 10–15 minutes.
Specialty Indecision Scale (SIS)
The Specialty Indecision Scale (SIS), 2nd Edition, assessment helps you get started thinking about specialty choice as well as overcome issues preventing you from making a specialty decision. The SIS uses 35 statements to measure six major areas of concern common to medical students considering and selecting specialties: readiness, information, identity, barriers, indecisiveness, and self-doubt. Your results will identify any areas of concern for you, and the report offers steps you can take to address each concern.
Estimated time to complete: 10–15 minutes.
Residency Preference Exercise
This exercise will help you decide which programs you would like to apply to and rank. It involves rating your preferences for a residency training program and rating programs based on how well you believe they agree with your preferences.
Estimated time to complete: 10–15 minutes.
Connect with Us
After taking the assessment, we encourage you to make an appointment with any of the following people:
- Dr. Lee Miller, Associate Dean of Student Affairs
- Your Society Dean
- A staff member from the Career Development team
