A national survey into desirable personality traits in anaesthesia trainees in a developing country

Objective: To explore personality traits considered to be important in selection of trainees by consultant anaesthetists in a developing country. Methods: A questionnaire listing 28 traits was sent to 125 consultant anaesthetists. The raters were asked to mark each trait on a scale of 1 to 10, with one being least desirable and 10 as most desirable. Listing of five most desirable and one least desirable trait was also required. Results: The response rate was 79%. The most desirable trait was identified as reliability by 40%, followed by honesty 17%, functionality under stress 9%, punctuality 7%, and discipline 4%. The least desirable trait was considered as resourcefulness (21%), sense of humour (20%), unassuming mannerism (15%), high self esteem (11%), inquisitive (5%) and expedious (5%). Conclusion: Some traits have been identified as more desirable than others for trainees in our country. We plan to assess these in structured behavioural interviews in our residency programme.