Personal Well-being Among Medical Students: Findings from an AAMC Pilot Survey

Research demonstrates a high prevalence of psychological distress among U.S. medical students, and the effects of distress may be more deleterious to the well-being of students from traditionally underrepresented groups. The negative consequences of distress during medical training—such as reduced empathy, lower ethical conduct, and substance abuse—are problematic if they undermine the goal of graduating knowledgeable, effective, and professional physicians. In this Analysis in Brief, findings on medical student well-being and examines whether or not specific populations of students are disproportionately vulnerable to distress are reported. Results show that there are significant group differences across five measures of well-being. For example, a higher level of stress was reported among first generation college status, female, LGB, Asian (compared to white), and URiM (compared to white) respondents. Over the past decade, schools have become more aware of the high stress level among their students and many schools have or are implementing wellness initiatives. It will be important, going forward, to examine whether these interventions reduce the perceived stress of medical students and, specifically, if they are helpful for the student subgroups identified in this work, as they are the ones negatively affected by the medical school experience.

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