Doctors-in-the-making
– The development of professional identity among medical students
André Vågan - Ph.D. Fellow
Advisor:
Professor Harald Grimen
Project period:
2005-2009
The project is financed by the Norwegian Research Council.
This project is an ethnographic study of the development of professional identity among medical students. The early fostering of professional identity and forms of knowledge was a central idea in the Oslo96 reform of the study of medicine. The ability to update oneself on new medical knowledge and to communicate with patients, are main challenges for the medical profession and education. The project therefore investigates how students come to understand and internalise the significance of these forms of knowledge as part of their own professional development. Three expositions to illness and patients will be explored through interviews and participant observation: clinical teaching, dissection and communication training.
To shed light upon these issues I will do fieldwork in a medical school. From the vantage point of qualitative interviews and participant observation I will investigate: 1) how students experience and articulate encounters with illness and patients, focusing on how they impinge upon their conceptualisation of the medical profession and the development of their own professional identity; 2) how these conceptualisations are influenced by, and how they themselves influence upon processes of interaction among different actors.
The project is multidisciplinary in character and crosses the disciplines of medical sociology, sociology of professions, medical anthropology and educational theories of learning. It aims at developing new empirical knowledge and theoretical perspectives. The thesis will be based on articles published in scientific journals.