Best Practices for Supporting Professional Identity Formation during Laboratory Animal Medicine Residency Training

Professional identity formation (PIF) is the dynamic psychosocial process crucial to becoming enculturated into a profession. This nonlinear process starts with entrance into a training program and ideally results in the harmonization of norms, values, and aspirations of the person with those of the chosen field. PIF is most successful when trainees can reflect, have positive role models and mentors, and receive social validation. Those who experience lack of support or hardship during PIF are at risk of burnout and poor mental health during their careers. Medical education research indicates that residency training significantly impacts PIF. This occurs because residents' new patient care responsibilities force them to grapple with the differences between the ideal practice taught in medical school and the realities of their work lives. Emerging evidence in veterinary medical education research indicates that residents enrolled in laboratory animal medicine (LAM) residency programs experience similar tensions as they navigate relationships with stakeholders, encounter conditional valuation of their veterinary knowledge, and feel powerless to enact changes. To explore best practices for supporting PIF for developing LAM veterinarians, we performed a qualitative analysis of written comments from surveys completed by attendees at the 2022 American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine Forum meeting. Results were organized by 5 themes: (1) empowering residents to step into their authority and understand the limitations of their roles, (2) providing support for learning about the complexities of relationships within LAM, (3) serving as role models and mentors in building relationships, (4) creating opportunities to learn professional communication, and (5) advocating for the specialized and explicit value of the profession (LAM). From these results, we constructed a model that illustrates the PIF process for LAM veterinarians in training, with the goal of raising awareness of the connection between the quality of PIF and career wellness.