Communication and identification: Physicians and organizations

The purpose of this study was to understand how physicians in different organizational contexts view themselves and their world and investigate the role of communication in the construction of physician identity. I was also interested in understanding the tensions that physicians experience related to multiple identities and the influence of the current environment in medicine on these identities.; I interviewed 43 physicians in three organizational contexts, solo/partnership, group and an HMO-type staff-model multi-specialty clinic. Data from these interviews were collected and analyzed according to the constant comparative method as described by Glaser and Strauss (1967) and later refined by Lincoln and Guba (1985) in search of themes derived from the data and enlightened by extant literature. These themes were first used to answer specific research questions, but in addressing these questions, I discovered a more global interpretive scheme that provides a context for understanding the research questions.; The interpretive scheme generated for this study depicts physicians as having multi-faceted identities shaped by their being in the physicianhood, their relationship with patients, their organizational context, and the greater social environment in which they work. In this study, I make a contribution to the understanding of physician identity. This study has shown that physicians' identities are multifaceted, complex and shaped by context. Secondly, I have provided key insights into how identity is constructed. There are multiple influences on the construction of physician identity and memorable messages are one of many influences. This dissertation adds to the study of organizational identification by showing that physicians do identify with their organization (regardless of whether it was a solo practice or a large clinic) in light of their profession. Furthermore, this study contributes to the dialogue concerning the relationship between identity and identification. Physicians in this study drew on the general set of constructs of physician identity to form internally cohesive identity types. For these physicians, identity is contextual.