The medical order and the subject disorder in medical professional formation

Abstract

This paper aimed at analyzing the construction of medical professional identity, considering the diversity of relationships involved in this process, (in particular, that between the doctor and the) especially the physician-patient, and the dehumanization of medicine problematic. Adopting the notion of habitus as reference, as formulated by Pierre Bourdieu, and the notions of identification and defense mechanisms of psychoanalytical theory, one seeks to investigate the social and psychic mechanisms involved in the construction of the doctor’s identity, through an analysis of the internalization process and externalization of the elements that characterize being a doctor, during the professional training. It was revealed the existence of institutional mechanisms that annihilate student’s subjectivity, disorganize their personal identity, and requiring conditions that are impossible to put into practice, forcing the student to make use of defense mechanisms preventing them from experiencing healthy relationships with the other.