ABSTRACT
The overall training situation in medical school calls out and defines a specific identity: that of 'student' during the first two years and 'student-physician' during the clerkship years. Students' adjustments to the training situation are not in simple conformity to the requirements of medical school. Such adjustments are mediated by students' partially constructing the nature and significance of the medical school situation by drawing off of important aspects of their private lives. Research on the medical school situation revealed a number of perspectives, derived from identities which students embrace outside of medical school, that complement the student perspective. The women's health perspective contributes to the situation of medical training by orienting women to 'make it' in medical school with a special concern for the issues, problems, and concerns of health care and medical training central to women. Articulation of multiple identities within specific situations leads to situations defining identities, and identities redefining situations.
