Abstract

Doctors’ socialization emerges from the interaction of professional identity formation (PIF) and context. We previously reported that medical students considered their career and junior residents adapted as physicians in forming their PIF. Following this, four patterns of doctors’ socialization emerged, all in the interaction of contexts, such as organization. In the present paper, we add consideration of the variation theory to these four patterns. This theory explains the discernment and variation of the interaction between PIF and context, and provides one hint to explain the mechanism of differentiated patterns in doctors’ socialization. Medical educators who are in a position to influence the context in which doctors’ socialization occurs should recognize that oscillations in the learner's state and emotions in the liminal space can lead to subjective change in the learner.

Keywords: Professional identity formation; Professional socialization; Context; Threshold concept; Variation theory