Medical science an undervalued profession: Strengthening professional identity through union strategy

Abstract

This paper examines the factors that have led to the undervaluing of the medical science profession and how a union can take a strategic approach to strengthen the professional identity of its membership to overcome challenges. We draw on interviews with union officials and managers and focus groups with medical scientists in four health services in Victoria, Australia. Drawing on the union strategy literature, we argue that professional identity is related in a recursive way to the attitudinal context and the narrative capabilities of the union. We found that first, many medical scientists believed that medical science was invisible and undervalued contributing to a weak professional identity due to underlying structural and institutional factors. Second, this has been exacerbated by the attitudinal context in which the profession has been subordinated to the other stronger professions of doctors and nurses. Third, we report the union is attempting to strengthen the professional identity of medical scientists through developing union campaigns with a narrative around work intensification and the critical nature of medical science work. Union strategy underpinned by union campaigns seeks to transform medical scientists’ attitudinal context by harnessing their sense of associational power through narrative capabilities to strengthen professional identity.