The Study of Content of Identity and Identification--The Interplay of Individual and Organizational Level

What is self-identity? Is it different from identification? Actually, the former is defined as how one define oneself, who they are, and what role they undertake. The latter is defined the transformation process of how they obtain the identity. We are interested in the definition and boundary of self-identity, and the key factors to impact on identity. Ashforth et al. (2008) even asked the same questions, “Which is the major factor to impact on identity, individual level or organizational level?” Based on previous research conducted, this study is aimed to study the transform process of physicians’ self-identity in the target of residents and attending physicians, and further to reveal the interrelationship of organizational and individual values. However, we target on the two group comparison, one is the specialty with significant shortage manpower (such as internal medicine and surgery), and the other is the most popular specialty (such as esthetic, and pathology). Hospital accreditation level is also taken into consideration of sampling. This study is designed as followed: we select and interview the physicians of target specialties in order to find the contents of the identity and identification of physicians the first year. We design the instrument based on the sense defined by the content of identity and further validate the instrument in the second year. We conduct the survey on the target population and design a curriculum to transfer the identity and identification process to medical students.