IHSE Visiting Scholar Special Presentation
Lara Varpio, PhD
Professor, Department of Pediatrics Perelman School of Medicine University of Philadelphia
Co-Director of Research in Medical Education The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Professional Identity Formation as Immigration
We gratefully acknowledge the Newell Trust in Research in Health Sciences Education for providing support for this event
We welcome you to join us for this person in-person. Please note there will not be a Zoom link offered for this meeting. This in an in-person event only, space is limited in order to secure your space we ask that you .
Abstract:
Just as immigrants from various countries travel great distances in hopes of calling a new country home, our health professions learners also undertake great journeys. For some, their trips might involve geographic treks; however, all will undertake great private journeys across any number of terrains in the name of professional identity formation. In this session, we’ll consider professional identity formation as a form of immigration. Through this framing, we will consider the deeply personal—and sometimes painful—work that is involved in taking on the responsibilities of the white coat.
Learning objectives:
After attending this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Understand professional identity formation (PIF) as a personal and social process;
2. Describe the reasons why, for many, PIF is a transformative process that begins well before matriculation;
3. Recognize the dangers of PIF that have been reported in the literature; and
4. Describe how recognizing PIF as subjectification can help address the dangers of the PIF immigration journey.
Dr. Lara Varpio is Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Philadelphia and the Co-Director of Research in Medical Education at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She started these positions in 2022, after serving for 9 years at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and 6 years at the University of Ottawa, Canada.
Dr. Varpio’s research investigates how individual clinicians can shape the medical profession, and how the profession shapes individual clinicians. In that research, she uses qualitative methodologies and methods, integrated with theories from the Social Sciences and Humanities. Her most recent work is related to: the perilous myths of professional identity formation, and how the concept of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is failing medical education. She mentors many individual health professions educators from several specialties in a wide range of topics, and is internationally recognized for her expertise in qualitative research methods and methodologies, and with a wide array of different theories.
Dr. Varpio has secured over $5.7millionUSD in research grants, has authored +150 peer-reviewed conference presentations, disseminated +180 peer-reviewed publications, and given keynote talks and invited sessions at all the major medical education international conferences. Dr. Varpio was recently selected by the Fulbright Scholarship committee to mentor and host a Fulbright Scholar award winner from Australia. In 2019, she was selected as one of twelve inaugural Karolinska Fellows. She was co-host of the KeyLIME podcast, and moved with the show to the Karolinska Institutet, and now co-hosts the PAPERs Podcast.
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