Tufts Medical School Alumni, 1980

These data were collected in 1980 to provide a comparison set of data to the materials collected from the Study of Harvard Medical School Alumni (see Notman and Nadelson, 00628). The purpose was to examine specialty choice, experiences in medical education, and patterns of life decisions of medical school alumni. Men and women who had graduated between 1949 and 1979 from Tufts New England Medical Center were sent the questionnaire by mail along with an informed consent form. The sample was chosen by selecting the name of each woman and the adjacent man's name from alphabetical alumni lists. The five-page questionnaire included the following: some basic demographic questions, educational history, medical training history, professional duties, career changes and career aspirations, marital status and information about spouse, child-care and division of labor between family responsibilities and work, and income. There were also some open-ended questions assessing reasons for career shifts, work other than medicine, balancing career and family, and advice received during medical school. The Murray Archive holds additional analogue materials for this study (questionnaire data from 241 men and women). If you would like to access this material, please apply to use the data.