Subjective social status and premedical students' attitudes towards medical school

Matthew K. Grace

Social Science & Medicine, 2017, vol. 184, issue C, 84-98

Abstract: Although students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to depart from the medical education pipeline, little is known about how premedical students' social origins influence the adversities they face, the resources they possess, or the internal struggles they confront in deciding whether or not to pursue a career in medicine. Using original data collected from premedical students at a flagship state university in the Midwest (N = 364), this study explores how subjective social status shapes students' reservations about medical school attendance and their perceptions of external pressure to pursue a career in medicine. Status-based discrepancies in financial strains, social capital, and interpersonal stressors—and the degree to which variation across these measures mediates status differences in medical school outlook—are also explored. Net of objective measures of social class, results suggest that doubts about attending medical school and feeling that not attending medical school will let down one's community are more prevalent among premeds who identify as lower status. These group differences are explained—at least in part—by lower status premedical students' perceptions of financial hardships, more limited reserves of social capital, and more frequent encounters with class-based discrimination and with educators who discourage their career aspirations.

Keywords: United States; Premedical education; Medical socialization; Subjective social status; Attitudes towards medical school; Social capital; Discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617302988
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:184:y:2017:i:c:p:84-98

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.05.004

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().