Trajectories of a doctor's professional development: a narrative interview. Part 1

BACKGROUND: Medical education is one of the most prestigious and in demand at the present stage, which, first of all, is reflected in the high competition rates for admission to a medical university. At the same time, the digital development of the Institute of Medicine determines the increasing academic load and the need to expand the range of disciplines studied at a medical university.

AIM: To study of the trajectories of professional development of a young doctor in the Russian healthcare system in modern conditions.

METHODS: The study of the trajectories of professional development of young doctors was carried out by the method of narrative interview (n=52) in September–December 2022 on the basis of the Institute of Social Sciences of Sechenov University. The study involved young internists (n=11), pediatricians (n=11), obstetricians and gynecologists (n=10), dentists (n=10), surgeons (n=10).

RESULTS: The analysis of the array of narratives allowed us to identify three key semantic and semantic data blocks (including seven subgroups), which served as the empirical basis of the standard narrative plot: the pre-university stage ["playing the profession" (3–7 years), "premonition" of professional choice (8–11 years), professional self-determination or the formation of professional intentions (12–17 years)]; university stage [obtaining medical education as the "foundation" of professional socialization (1–2 years), determining the desired trajectory of the professional path (3–6 years)]; postgraduate stage [debut of professional activity (residency), "challenges of professional autonomy"].

CONCLUSION: The analysis of the corpus of narratives of young doctors made it possible to identify the key temporal points of the trajectory of their professional formation in the modern situation, and showed that the formation and professional self-determination of a medical specialist is determined not only by internal motivation, but also by the influence of social agents (specific for each stage), the conditions of the social and professional environment.