Ralph Hammond1, Vinette Cross2, Ann Moore3. 1. Clinical Research Centre, School for Health Professions, University of Brighton, 49 Darley Road, Eastbourne BN20 7UR, UK. Electronic address: hammondr@csp.org.uk. 2. Clinical Research Centre, School for Health Professions, University of Brighton, 49 Darley Road, Eastbourne BN20 7UR, UK; Centre for Health and Social Care Improvement, Faculty of Education Health and Wellbeing, Wolverhampton University, Deanery Row, Wolverhampton WV1 1DT, UK. Electronic address: v.cross@brighton.ac.uk. 3. Clinical Research Centre, School for Health Professions, University of Brighton, 49 Darley Road, Eastbourne BN20 7UR, UK. Electronic address: A.P.Moore@brighton.ac.uk.
Abstract
UNLABELLED: The U.K. Frances Report and increasing societal expectations of healthcare have challenged physiotherapists to reconsider professionalism. Physiotherapy has viewed identity as a fixed entity emphasising coherence, continuity and distinctiveness. Socialisation has required the acquisition of a professional identity as one necessary 'asset' for novices. Yet how do physiotherapists come to be the physiotherapists they are? DESIGN: Qualitative study using Collective Memory Work. Eight physiotherapists in South West England met for two hours, once a fortnight, for six months. Seventeen hours of group discussions were recorded and transcribed. Data were managed via the creation of crafted dialogues and analysed using narrative analysis. RESULTS: Participants shared ethical dilemmas: successes and unresolved anxiety about the limits of personal actions in social situations. These included matters of authenticity, role strain, morality, diversity. Participants made claims about their identity; claims made to support an attitude, belief, motivation or value. CONCLUSIONS: Professional identity in physiotherapy is more complex than traditionally thought; fluid across time and place, co-constructed within changing communities of practice. An ongoing and dynamic process, physiotherapists make sense and (re)interpret their professional self-concept based on evolving attributes, beliefs, values, and motives. Participants co-constructed the meaning of being a physiotherapist within intra-professional and inter-professional communities of practice. Patients informed this, and it was mediated by workplace and institutional discourses, boundaries and hierarchies, through an unfolding career and the contingencies of a life story. More empirical data are required to understand how physiotherapists negotiate the dilemmas they face and enact the values the profession espouses.
UNLABELLED: The U.K. Frances Report and increasing societal expectations of healthcare have challenged physiotherapists to reconsider professionalism. Physiotherapy has viewed identity as a fixed entity emphasising coherence, continuity and distinctiveness. Socialisation has required the acquisition of a professional identity as one necessary 'asset' for novices. Yet how do physiotherapists come to be the physiotherapists they are? DESIGN: Qualitative study using Collective Memory Work. Eight physiotherapists in South West England met for two hours, once a fortnight, for six months. Seventeen hours of group discussions were recorded and transcribed. Data were managed via the creation of crafted dialogues and analysed using narrative analysis. RESULTS:Participants shared ethical dilemmas: successes and unresolved anxiety about the limits of personal actions in social situations. These included matters of authenticity, role strain, morality, diversity. Participants made claims about their identity; claims made to support an attitude, belief, motivation or value. CONCLUSIONS: Professional identity in physiotherapy is more complex than traditionally thought; fluid across time and place, co-constructed within changing communities of practice. An ongoing and dynamic process, physiotherapists make sense and (re)interpret their professional self-concept based on evolving attributes, beliefs, values, and motives. Participants co-constructed the meaning of being a physiotherapist within intra-professional and inter-professional communities of practice. Patients informed this, and it was mediated by workplace and institutional discourses, boundaries and hierarchies, through an unfolding career and the contingencies of a life story. More empirical data are required to understand how physiotherapists negotiate the dilemmas they face and enact the values the profession espouses.
Authors: Anna Arnal-Gómez; Elena Muñoz-Gómez; Gemma Victoria Espí-López; Raúl Juárez-Vela; Catalina Tolsada-Velasco; Elena Marques-Sule Journal: Medicine (Baltimore) Date: 2022-09-02 Impact factor: 1.817