Wearing multiple "hats": Daily identity transitions among nursing and allied health clinician-educators: A...

Nursing and allied health clinician-educators serve a vital function in bridging academic learning with clinical practice. Yet this role can be challenging as it requires shifting between clinician and clinician-educator identities throughout the day.

To explore how nursing and allied health clinician-educators navigate daily identity transitions from clinician to clinician-educator.

A qualitative study employing a secondary analysis of interviews and longitudinal audio diaries (LADs).

We conducted this study in Australia with nursing and allied health professionals working in hospital, residential, rehabilitation, private and community workplace settings.

Twenty-five clinician-educators from ten different healthcare professions, with participants ranging from novice to experienced clinician-educators.

We collected and thematically analyzed data from entrance interviews, weekly LADs, and exit interviews. We used Social Identity Complexity Theory (SICT) to explore clinician-educators daily identity transition processes as intersection, dominance, compartmentalization, and/or merging.

Dominance and compartmentalization explained the ways participants navigated their daily workplace identity transitions. Limited role clarity and confidence in educator tasks led to dominance of the clinician identity, particularly when participants perceived conflicting demands between educator and clinician roles. Participants also compartmentalized their identities; contextually activating either the clinician or educator identity. We found little evidence that participants daily identity transitions aligned with intersection and merging of identities.

Nursing and allied health clinician-educators face challenges when navigating their clinician and educator identities in clinical workplaces. Understanding these daily identity transitions is essential for designing supports to enhance education. We postulate that tailored induction programs incorporating identity transition theories, alongside organizational cultures valuing educational roles, could support clinician-educators to reconcile competing identities and cope with daily identity transitions.