Possibility and agency in Figured Worlds: becoming a ‘good doctor’
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Accepted Version
Date
2016-12-29
Authors
Bennett, Deirdre
Solomon, Yvette
Bergin, Colm
Horgan, Mary
Dornan, Tim
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John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Abstract
Context: Figured Worlds is a socio-cultural theory drawing on Vygotskian and Bakhtinian traditions, which has been applied in research into the development of identities of both learners and teachers in the wider education literature. It is now being adopted in medical education. Objective: The objective of this paper is to show what Figured Worlds can offer in medical education. Having explained some of its central tenets, we apply it to an important tension in our field. Methods: The assumption that there is a uniform ‘good doctor’ identity, which must be inculcated into medical students, underlies much of what medical educators do, and what our regulators enforce. Although diversity is encouraged when students are selected for medical school, pressure to professionalise students creates a drive towards a standardised professional identity by graduation. Using excerpts from reflective pieces written by two junior medical students, we review the basic concepts of Figured Worlds and demonstrate how it can shed light on the implications of this tension. Taking a Bakhtinian approach to discourse, we show how Adam and Sarah develop their professional identities as they negotiate the multiple overlapping and competing ways of being a doctor that they encounter in the world of medical practice. Each demonstrates agency by ‘authoring’ a unique identity in the cultural world of medicine, as they appropriate and re-voice the words of others. Discussion: Finally, we consider some important areas in medical education where Figured Worlds might prove to be a useful lens: the negotiation of discourses of gender, sexuality and social class, career choice as identification within specialty-specific cultural worlds, and the influence of hidden and informal curricula on doctor identity.
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Keywords
Figured Worlds , Medical education
Citation
Bennett, D., Solomon, Y., Bergin, C., Horgan, M. and Dornan, T. (2017) 'Possibility and agency in Figured Worlds: becoming a ‘good doctor’', Medical Education, 51(3), pp.248-257. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.13220
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© 2016, John Wiley & Sons Ltd and The Association for the Study of Medical Education. This is the accepted version of the following item: Bennett, D., Solomon, Y., Bergin, C., Horgan, M. and Dornan, T. (2017) 'Possibility and agency in Figured Worlds: becoming a ‘good doctor’', Medical Education, 51(3), pp.248-257, which has been published in final form at: https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.13220. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.