Table 4.
Comparison of Perceptions of Exposure to Pathology for Those Respondents Who Considered Pathology as a Career Choice Versus Those Who Did Not.
| Please rate your level of agreement with each of the following statements about pathology | Pathology considered | Pathology not considered | Significance* | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | Mean | Top box %† | N | Mean | Top box %† | ||
| I understand the job activities of a pathologist | 92 | 4.13 | 90% | 246 | 3.68 | 70% | t(206.993) = 5.397, P < .001 |
| I received adequate pathology education in my first 2 years of medical school | 92 | 3.96 | 77% | 249 | 4.00 | 80% | t(339) = −.403, P = .69 |
| I was sufficiently exposed to pathology in medical school to consider it as a career choice | 92 | 3.61 | 62% | 248 | 3.47 | 59% | t(338) = 1.087, P = .28 |
| Information on social media about pathology is encouraging | 68 | 2.85 | 19% | 147 | 2.67 | 8% | t(213) = 1.474, P = .14 |
| The pathology job market is strong | 62 | 2.97 | 35% | 99 | 3.00 | 36% | t(159) = −.188, P = .85 |
| Pathologists at my institution attempted to recruit me to pathology | 90 | 3.39 | 56% | 229 | 2.53 | 24% | t(317) = 6.604, P < .001 |
| Pathology residents have high job satisfaction | 56 | 4.13 | 84% | 89 | 3.60 | 64% | t(137.287) = 4.162, P < .001 |
| The time and workload demands of a pathology residency are reasonable | 81 | 4.22 | 89% | 118 | 4.03 | 79% | t(197) = 1.815, P = .07 |
| Pathology attendings have high job satisfaction | 69 | 4.19 | 87% | 103 | 3.80 | 71% | t(170) = 3.561, P < .001 |
* Significance was tested via independent samples t tests.
† Values in this column are the percent selecting strongly agree or agree.