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.