In 2013 and 2014 we conducted a study to examine some dimensions of medical student identity, social connections among medical students and wellbeing. We were pleased to have the participation from nearly 400 medical students, primarily in Australia and New Zealand, but also Europe and Asia. We were glad of the cooperation from both AMSA and NZMSA in supporting and advertising the research. We also collected comparison data from Psychology students to help us identify particular patterns in medical students.
We are still preparing the final write-up of this study, but some preliminary results have been presented at several conferences and invited talks. We found support for some features of our identity and wellbeing model (from Medical Education). Medical students also had a higher sense of identification, and this was directly linked to their wellbeing. We also found that in comparison with psychology students, medical students were more likely to be involved in social connections with other students from their own course (friends, sports, hobbies, relaxing).