Professional identity formation: linking meaning to well-being.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Toubassi, Diana Schenker, Carly Roberts, Michael Forte, Milena
Abstract	Trainee distress and burnout continue to be serious concerns for educational programs in medicine, prompting the implementation of numerous interventions. Although an expansive body of literature suggests that the experience of meaning at work is critical to professional wellbeing, relatively little attention has been paid to how this might be leveraged in the educational milieu. We propose that professional identity formation (PIF), the process by which trainees come to not only attain competence, but additionally to “think, act and feel” like physicians, affords us a unique opportunity to ground trainees in the meaningfulness of their work. Using the widely accepted tri-partite model of meaning, we outline how this process can contribute to wellbeing. We suggest strategies to optimize the influence of PIF on wellbeing, offering curricular suggestions, as well as ideas regarding the respective roles of communities of practice, teachers, and formative educational experiences. Collectively, these encourage trainees to act as intentional agents in the making of their novel professional selves, anchoring them to the meaningfulness of their work, and supporting their short and long-term wellbeing.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC9341156&blobtype=pdf
ISSN	13824996
Journal	Advances in Health Sciences Education [Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract]
Volume Number	28
DOI	10.1007/s10459-022-10146-2
PubMed Central reference number	PMC9341156
Issue Number	1
PubMed reference number	35913664
e-ISSN	15731677
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2022-08-01
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022, Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
Subject Keyword	Meaning Medical education Professional identity formation Well-being
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Education Medicine