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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Adolescent and Young Adult Psychiatry
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1483871
This article is part of the Research Topic Mental Health Challenges in Health Professions Education View all 5 articles

Associations Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Medical Students' Interest in Careers: A Single-Setting Study

Provisionally accepted
Phillip Yang Phillip Yang 1,2*Barbara Robles-Ramamurthy Barbara Robles-Ramamurthy 2Kristen A Plastino Kristen A Plastino 2
  • 1 University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
  • 2 The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are pervasive across communities, including medical students and physicians. Exposure to childhood trauma influences career decisions, such as social workers and nurses. However, the impact of ACEs on medical students' career interests remains unexplored. From August to October 2022, a survey was designed and administered to medical students at UT Health San Antonio School of Medicine (Texas, USA). Ten household-level and four community-level ACEs were assessed. Associations between ACE distribution and interest in medical specialties, academia, and primary care were analyzed by Mann-Whitney U test. Results. Four hundred nineteen (47.0%) of 891 total students completed the survey, of which 310 (74.3%) reported at least one ACE and 107 (25.7%) reported four or more. The most common ACE was living with a household member with mental illness (154, 36.9%). Students interested in psychiatry (p<.01) or academic medicine (p=.02) had significantly higher ACE scores than those not interested in these fields. No associations were observed between ACEs and students' interest in primary care. Discussion. The prevalence of medical students living with a household member with mental illness was approximately double than reported in population-based studies. Childhood trauma exposure may influence medical students' interests in psychiatry and academic medicine careers. Further research is needed to investigate how ACEs influence medical students' career considerations. Research exploring ACEs exposure in academic physicians and psychiatrists may further illuminate the associations found in this brief report. Importantly, advancements in trauma-informed approaches to medical education are necessary to facilitate safe learning environments.

    Keywords: Adverse childhood experiences, Medical Education, Career choices, Medical students, Surveys and questionnaires, Psychiatry, Academic medicine, Mental Health

    Received: 20 Aug 2024; Accepted: 06 Feb 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Robles-Ramamurthy and Plastino. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Phillip Yang, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.