Grant awarded by the Scottish Medical Education Research Consortium (SMERC)

We received a grant for just under £10,000 to progress the work on the link between different types of stressors and identity in the medical context into 2017. The project title is: Identity-potent stressors: The interplay of professional (social) identity and specific work-related stressors; and the implications for wellbeing of doctors and medical trainees. This is … Read more

Summer interns explore issues of identity complexity and wellbeing

We were delighted to have four volunteer summer interns working with the lab over the summer – three from St Andrews and a guest all the way from Turkey! The group spend the majority of their time exploring the issues around identity and well-being in the medical context. We also explored different models of self-complexity … Read more

Dora Sharpe-Davidson PhD submitted

Dora Sharpe-Davidson has submitted her Clinical Psychology PhD to the ANU just in time for Christmas!  Dora’s project has taken the idea of self complexity and self-concept clarity, both of which have been found to buffer people against stressors and improve wellbeing.  Dora looked at various forms of discrimination as a particular form of stress, … Read more

Self and Identity Processes, Stress, and Resilience: Invited Talk

Symposium on Burnout and Resiliency in Medical Education Participants from across Scotland and further afield gathered in the Gateway building at St Andrews to discuss recent work on building resilience in medical education. The importance of improving the well-being of medical students and professionals has been a growing priority in recent years. As part of … Read more

Dora Sharpe-Davidson presents at the European Health Psychology conference

The 29th European Health Psychology Society conference was a great opportunity for Dora to see some of the newest empirical and theoretical research in health psychology. The conference showcased a diverse range of topics on how to facilitate behaviour change in health and illness, including e-mental health interventions, motivational interviewing, physical exercise interventions and the … Read more

A complex systems view in medical student wellbeing research

“…some stress is identity-potent: it has a special meaning in the context of a professional identity.” Ken and Kathy had the opportunity to write a commentary piece for Medical Education entitled “Moving toward a complex systems view in medical student wellbeing research”. We took the opportunity to further advance the view that we need to … Read more

Kathy McNeill awarded PhD

Congratulations to Kathy on completing her corrections and submitting the final thesis for the award of her PhD!  Kathy’s thesis was entitled “An Investigation of Self-Structure, Social Identity and Norms in Medical Student Wellbeing” and several papers have already come out of this line of work.  Kathy’s PhD is part of our “Prevalence to Process” … Read more