Drawing the ARC: How medical students shape their professional selves

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Professional Identity Formation
• Qualitative Research

Background:

• Developing a strong professional identity is crucial for medical students to prevent burnout and misconduct.
• Existing conceptual models describe physicianhood internalization, but lack a catalog of student-driven professional identity formation (PIF) mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To deconstruct and codify the mechanisms medical students use for professional identity formation (PIF).
• To generate a practical construct for educators to support PIF.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional, qualitative, multi-institutional study involving 52 graduating medical students from four U.S. medical schools.
• Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and transcripts were coded by pairs of investigators, with a third coder for validation.
• Excerpts were analyzed to identify and characterize PIF mechanisms.

Main Results:

• Twenty discrete PIF mechanisms were identified, categorized into three domains: action, reflection, and connection.
• Action mechanisms include role enactment, observation, and experimentation.
• Reflection mechanisms involve self-evaluation and feedback, while connection mechanisms focus on support and trust.

Conclusions:

• Medical students utilize a combination of action, reflection, and connection (ARC) mechanisms for PIF.
• The ARC construct validates existing theories and offers a framework for educators to optimize PIF interventions.