Death rates of medical school class presidents

Donald A Redelmeier and Jeffrey C Kwong

Social Science & Medicine, 2004, vol. 58, issue 12, 2537-2543

Abstract: Medical professionals often face many competing demands to contribute both to the clinical care of patients and to the public health of society. We studied the long-term survival of doctors graduating from one medical school over one century (n=1521), comparing those who were presidents of their class to those who appeared alphabetically before or alphabetically after the president in the graduating class photograph. Statistics on long-term mortality were obtained from licensing authorities, medical obituaries, professional associations, alumni records, and national physician directories (follow-up 94% complete, median follow-up duration=38 years, total deaths=220). We found that most graduates were male (88%), white (93%), and younger than 30 years at time of graduation (93%). Presidents more frequently made contributions to society than their classmates, as recognized by professional alumni notices (21.9% vs. 13.3%, P

Keywords: Social; gradients; and; health; Long; term; death; rates; Medical; professionals; Lifestyle; and; mortality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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