Act like a doctor: portraits of medical students negotiating the multiplicity and spatiality of professional identity development in America

Thesis

While medical education research has focused on professional identity development, the impact of medical education space and multiple dimensions of identity remain underexplored. This thesis examines how medical students with multiple dimensions of identity experience the professional identity development process and investigates the role of medical education space during identity transformation.

Informed by intersectionality and Ortega’s (2016) multiplicitous self, this qualitative study employs portraiture methodology. Six medical students attending medical schools across the United States of America participated in data collection, which consisted of three semi-structured interviews and two arts-informed activities, including a self-portrait and a photo-elicitation series depicting medical education spaces. Intersectional narrative thematic analysis guided interpretation of visual and textual data.

Findings indicate that experiential differences during medical school arise in relation to a medical student’s multiple dimensions of identity. These experiences directly influence professional identity development. Many participants encountered persistent ontological tension, while those whose identities align with normative expectations engrained in American medical education experienced greater ontological ease. Further, medical education space is demonstrated to be the medium through which normativity is reproduced and spatially contingent identities are formed. As the medical student participants engaged in resistance, embraced their multiple identities, and created new ways of being, their agency combined with the effects of medical education space make identity co-existence possible.

This thesis advances our understanding of the experiences of medical students with multiple dimensions of identity by positioning professional identity development as a sociohistorical, spatially contingent, and ontological process. Additionally, the interplay of power, space, multiplicity, and normativity in medical education presents implications for how professional identity development is theorised. Examining the medical students’ portraits also reveals implications for medical education practices that can better address the needs of medical students with multiple dimensions of identity.  

Authors: Collins, SR

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-yjopz6rxp
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: space; portraiture; intersectionality; multiplicitous self; medical education; professional identity development; medical students
• Subjects: Medical education; Education; Qualitative research