Professional identity, pivotal moments, and influences: Implications for preceptor development

Preceptors are critical in training learners and supporting learner professional identity formation (PIF). This manuscript describes pharmacist preceptors' professional identities (PI), pivotal moments and influences that shaped those PIs, and how this impacts their precepting to inform future preceptor development.

Semi-structured interviews with experienced preceptors from five experiential education programs were transcribed and analyzed. An abductive approach was used for coding, followed by thematic analysis.

Twenty-two participants from various settings described their PI as a medication specialist, care provider, safeguard, educator, and/or manager. Six themes were recognized across the interview question data as critical to forming professional identity. These included: common elements among pharmacists' PIs such as being a medication-related problem solver (theme 1) and helping/serving others (theme 2); a connection between preceptor identity and participant precepting practices (theme 3); and the importance of role models (theme 4), practicing autonomy (theme 5) and being treated as a pharmacist (theme 6) in developing the participants' PI.

These findings suggest that preceptor development could focus on introducing the concept of PIF, build an understanding of the importance of role models and pivotal moments in supporting PIF, and support the development of preceptor identity as a clinician, educator, or teacher.

Critically, the findings from this analysis suggest that a preceptor's PI can influence how they precept, the types of experiences they facilitate for learners, and the norms and values they model. These findings will inform future preceptor development programs about their learner's PIF.