ABSTRACT
The author’s interest in researching the clinical encounter arose from her professional experiences as a doctor and her healthcare encounters as a patient. This chapter opens with a story, through which the author illustrates what she means by the crafting of relational identity. The reader is given a background to the project on which this book is based, along with its aims. The underlying theory, design and methods are briefly outlined, to be detailed in the subsequent chapter. Targeted literature reviews provide context for the later chapters of the book. The first section of the review is focused on identity research from anthropology, cultural studies, sociology and social psychology. Identity is characterised as a dynamic, multiple and relational phenomenon, and the concepts of social identity complexity and group identification are described. The second section focuses on identity research in medical education including identity dissonance, professionalism and narrative-based learning activities. Gaps in the literature addressed by this book are identified, including patient experiences of clinical teaching, the implications of patients’ stories for students’ identity work and the importance of power dynamics in clinical teaching and identity construction.
