Anticipated shame and professional identity formation

Abstract

Developing a professional identity in physicians-in-training is a central, but contested, outcome of medical education. In recent years scholars have argued for the importance of including affective experiences, especially shame, in the discourse around medical training. This discourse reflects projection and anticipation around both shame and professional identity, and the question of how shame impacts the latter is critical. Shame is an affect that arises when the self is confronted by the gaze, judgment or awareness of an Other; it can have profound impacts on identity and self-concept, and is highly prevalent in medicine and healthcare. This article posits ‘anticipated shame’ as a potent factor implicit in the experience of developing a medical professional identity, and connects shame to stigma and marginalization in medical training. Shame, and the anticipation of shame in student–teacher and trainee–patient interactions, highlights aspects of interpersonal communication within medical training and then practice. The concept of anticipated shame offers rich ground to theorize the effects of affect in medical education, and how trainees internalize medical cultural values and then enter the field of clinical practice.