Autistic Traits, STEM, and Medicine: Autism Spectrum Quotient Scores Predict Medical Students’ Career Specialty Preferences

Emma Turner, Emma Aitken and Gareth Richards

SAGE Open, 2021, vol. 11, issue 4, 21582440211050389

Abstract: There is a higher than chance representation of autistic people and people with elevated autistic traits in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) industries. Medical students, despite studying a STEM subject, have lower autistic traits than other STEM students. Medicine is heterogenous, covering technique-oriented specialties (e.g., surgery) with little patient interaction, person-oriented specialties (e.g., pediatrics), and general practice. We present an online survey in which 502 UK university students (medicine, n  = 344; STEM, n  = 94; non-STEM, n  = 64) reported their study area and career aspirations and completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), a quantitative self-report measure of autistic traits. Our main findings were that medical students had significantly lower AQ scores than other STEM ( p  

Keywords: autism; autistic traits; STEM; medicine; medical education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:11:y:2021:i:4:p:21582440211050389

DOI: 10.1177/21582440211050389

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