Experiences Contributing to Professional Identity Transformation among Medical Laboratory Professional Students

Abstract

Despite the importance of medical laboratory professionals [MLPs] to the field of health care, there has been little published research on the education of the MLP students to understand their development. In particular, there is a lack of attention to the MLP students’ professional identity, learning, and the professional socialization processes that are important aspects of their professional training. This paper provides insights regarding these dimensions of MLP students’ training, focusing on the situations that supported transformative learning in their professional identity development. It reports on a study that explored changes in MLP students’ identity during a contemporary medical laboratory education program in Canada. Data obtained through interviews were analyzed from an emergent, thematic perspective to identify situations that affected the development of, or shift in, the students’ professional identity. Findings suggest that the shifts in the participants’ identity were affected by a collective of reflections, experiences, pre-established ideas, and concepts formed throughout the educational process.