Pre-medical majors in the humanities and social sciences: impact on communication skills and specialty choice.

CONTEXT: Medical school admissions committees use a variety of criteria to determine which candidates to admit to their programmes. Effective communication is increasingly considered a key requisite to the practice of effective medicine. Medical students with pre-medical backgrounds in the humanities and social sciences may be more likely to acquire skills relevant to patient-centred communication, either prior to or during medical school.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between pre-medical backgrounds in the humanities and social sciences and outcomes in medical school, including in communication and interpersonal skills (CIS), licensure examination results and postgraduate specialty choice (primary care versus non-primary care specialties).

METHODS: The American Medical College Application Service database was used to identify pre-medical college majors, demographic characteristics, Medical College Admission Test scores and college grade point averages for medical students at a large, midwestern medical school. Data were obtained for 465 medical students across three cohorts (classes of 2014-2016). Correlation and regression analyses were used to examine relationships between pre-medical background, performance on graduation competency examination standardised patient encounter CIS scores and on United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 and Step 2 Clinical Knowledge scores, and postgraduate specialty choice.

RESULTS: Graduating medical students with pre-medical humanities or social sciences majors performed significantly better in terms of CIS than those with natural science majors (Cohen's d = 0.28, p = 0.011). There were no significant associations between pre-medical majors and USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 Clinical Knowledge scores or postgraduate specialty choice.

CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that considering humanistic factors as part of admissions criteria may promote the selection and training of physicians with good communication skills.