Four Ideal Types of Physicians in Search of an Author, relazione presentata al XVII Congresso mondiale dell'International sociological association, Göteborg, Svezia, RC 52, 4ª sessione, Professional identities on the move.

In this paper the impact of motivations for practicing medicine on physicians’ identity will be analyzed. Following a survey of 900 doctors whose findings have been discussed at the Oslo meeting almost two years ago, this time I have been turning to qualitative inquiry in order to seek the views of medical practitioners themselves on motivational factors and other, correlated, issues. The findings of semi-structured in depth interviews with forty doctors living in two medium sized towns, one in the South (Cosenza) and the other (Brescia) in the North of Italy, are elaborated. As for motivational factors, the stratification of professional identity thesis has been confirmed and four ideal types of doctors have been devised. 1. The ones that have chosen “emotionally” and for whom medicine was a “call” and that never even considered another option. 2. For a second group a singular episode was very important, namely the presence of a family doctor in their childhood that used to visit their relatives and that they admired and loved very much. 3. A third group was particularly attracted by the human organism and interested in the way it works. 4. Finally, there are those who have considered other works, often connected with hard sciences, and for whom medicine was more a rational choice. Other related issues are then discussed, particularly the main cleavage among the above groups of doctors that is the division between physicians and surgeons.