Description: Episode 15 discusses “‘Yourself in all your forms’: A grounded theory exploration of identity safety in medical students” (Bullock et al. 2023). Bullock and his colleagues develop a theory of identity safety through careful analysis of 16 in-depth interviews with 3rd and 4th medical students with a diverse range of identities and experiences. The article identifies and describes key dimensions of identity threat, threat mitigation, and identity safety. Three factors contributing to identity safety that emerged from the team’s analysis: Agency to serve, upholding personhood, and a sense of belonging. Identity safety manifested as students sharing a particular minoritized identity with their attending physician, wearing a particular item or hair style, presenting themselves in a particular way, or feeling respected as unique individuals by both their peers and supervisors. When experiencing identity safety, students felt empowered to draw on their own unique experiential knowledge grounded in their particular identities when treating a patient.

Authors: Justin Bullock, Javeed Sukhera, Amira del Pino-Jones, Timothy G. Dyster, Jonathan S. Ilgen, Tai M. Lockspeiser, Pim W. Teunissen, and Karen E. Hauer.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.15174

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Transcript