Professional Identity Development in Dietitians - Influences and Impacts

Professional identity, the reconciliation of personal and professional selves, is an ongoing task of professionalisation and impacts the workforce at personal, interpersonal and profession levels. By exploring dietetic professional identity through autoethnography, life histories and experiences of being a dietitian, I found we bring personal identity as narratives of self to our professional lives. These narratives of self reflect personal attributes as well as family attitudes, beliefs and values, and their broader influences. Strong narratives of self, aspects of agency (self-efficacy), strengthen professional identity and facilitate resistance to regulation by dominant discourses and role expectations that can promote practice innovation.