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"Will I be able to be myself? Or will I be forced to lie all the time?": How Trans and Non-Binary Students Balance Professionalism, Authenticity, and Safety in Canadian Medical Programs.

Kat ButlerMeredith VanstoneAdryen YakAlbina Veltman
Published in: Perspectives on medical education (2024)
From medical school application to graduation, TNB medical students reported feeling tensions between meeting expectations of professionalism, being their authentic selves, and seeking to avoid conscious and implicit biases. These tensions played out around issues of disclosure, foregrounding identity through impression management, and responding to identity exemplars. The tension between TNB trainees' desire to bring their whole selves to the practice of medicine and feeling pressured to de-emphasize their gender is ironic when considering the increased call for medical trainees from equity-seeking communities. The most commonly used behavioural frameworks of professionalism were inherited from prior generations and restrict students whose experiences and community-based knowledge are most needed. Demands of professionalism that are incompatible with authentic professional identity development place an inordinate burden on trainees whose identities have been excluded from normative concepts of the professional, including TNB trainees.
Keyphrases
  • social media
  • healthcare
  • mental health
  • general practice
  • medical students
  • primary care
  • high school
  • public health