title: Family physicians' professional identity formation: a study protocol to explore impression management processes in institutional academic contexts.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Despite significant differences in terms of medical training and health care context, the phenomenon of medical students' declining interest in family medicine has been well documented in North America and in many other developed countries as well. As part of a research program on family physicians' professional identity formation initiated in 2007, the purpose of the present investigation is to examine in-depth how family physicians construct their professional image in academic contexts; in other words, this study will allow us to identify and understand the processes whereby family physicians with an academic appointment seek to control the ideas others form about them as a professional group, i.e. impression management.
  
  
  METHODS
  The methodology consists of a multiple case study embedded in the perspective of institutional theory. Four international cases from Canada, France, Ireland and Spain will be conducted; the "case" is the medical school. Four levels of analysis will be considered: individual family physicians, interpersonal relationships, family physician professional group, and organization (medical school). Individual interviews and focus groups with academic family physicians will constitute the main technique for data generation, which will be complemented with a variety of documentary sources. Discourse techniques, more particularly rhetorical analysis, will be used to analyze the data gathered. Within- and cross-case analysis will then be performed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This empirical study is strongly grounded in theory and will contribute to the scant body of literature on family physicians' professional identity formation processes in medical schools. Findings will potentially have important implications for the practice of family medicine, medical education and health and educational policies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. charo.rodriguez@mcgill.ca.
authors.forename: Charo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rodríguez
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pawlikowska
authors.forename: Francois-Xavier
authors.initials: FX
authors.lastname: Schweyer
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: López-Roig
authors.forename: Emmanuelle
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bélanger
authors.forename: Jane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Burns
authors.forename: Sandrine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hugé
authors.forename: Maria Ángeles
authors.initials: MÁ
authors.lastname: Pastor-Mira
authors.forename: Pierre-Paul
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Tellier
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Spencer
authors.forename: Laure
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fiquet
authors.forename: Inmaculada
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Pereiró-Berenguer
mesh_terms: D005180:Faculty, Medical; D006801:Humans; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D010819:Physician's Role / Q000523:psychology*; D010821:Physicians, Family / Q000193:education* / Q000523:psychology*; D012933:Social Identification; D012938:Social Perception