Professional Identity, Job Satisfaction, and Commitment of Nonphysician Faculty in Academic Family Medicine

Nonphysician faculty are common in academic family medicine departments and residencies. The objective of this study was to examine whether these nonphysician faculty have adopted a professional identity of family medicine and how that relates to job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

In 2017, a survey of nonphysician members of the Council of Academic Family Medicine organizations in the United States and Canada was conducted. The overall response rate for the survey was 52.6% (526/1,001). The current analysis was conducted on the individuals who met all of the inclusion criteria and had complete data on all investigated scales (n=360). Scales on professional identity, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment were examined along with age, gender, race, and professional characteristics.

The respondents indicated a professional identity with family medicine, commitment to their organization, and high job satisfaction. There was a lack of association with gender for these primary variables. Professional identity had a moderately positive relationship with years in family medicine (r=0.23). Professional identity had a moderately strong positive relationship with both commitment to the organization (r=0.41), and job satisfaction (r=0.43). In multivariate regressions, race/ethnicity was associated with both professional identity (P<.05) and job satisfaction (P<.05), with nonwhites having lower professional identity and job satisfaction.

The results of this survey of nonphysician faculty in family medicine indicated a high professional identity to family medicine, high job satisfaction, and commitment to their organization. Strategies including cultural competency training may serve as important tools to avoid dissatisfaction or turnover among this key workforce element in academic family medicine.