Cross Pressures During Socialization for Medicine

Abstract

Processes of socialization with respect to three principal role components of the competent physician are analyzed by means of turnover tables between contiguous periods observed during a longitudinal study. Summary measures concerning the net turnover, transition probabilities and continuous time transition rates permit an analysis of the overall process of change from a point in time prior to the start offormal socialization all the way to the end of year six when formal socialization ends. Findings show that the process of socialization with respect to the People component is characterized by ambivalence which is expressed in almost balanced positive and negative cross pressures concerning the importance of this component in the role of the competent physician. The process of change with respect to the Status component is an absorbing Markov chain: change is in a positive direction and occurs rather quickly so that by the end of year three virtually all of the population has moved to a positive position on this component and practically no change is evident during subsequent years. With respect to the Science component the data show that pressures are consistently and dominantly negative during the entire process with few counter pressures in a positive direction.