Professional identity, job satisfaction, and commitment of nonphysician faculty in academic family medicine

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Nonphysician faculty are common in academic family medicine departments and residencies. The objective of this study was to examine whether these nonphysician faculty have adopted a professional identity of family medicine and how that relates to job satisfaction and organizational commitment. METHODS: In 2017, a survey of nonphysician members of the Council of Academic Family Medicine organizations in the United States and Canada was conducted. The overall response rate for the survey was 52.6% (526/1,001). The current analysis was conducted on the individuals who met all of the inclusion criteria and had complete data on all investigated scales (n=360). Scales on professional identity, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment were examined along with age, gender, race, and professional characteristics. RESULTS: The respondents indicated a professional identity with family medicine, commitment to their organization, and high job satisfaction. There was a lack of association with gender for these primary variables. Professional identity had a moderately positive relationship with years in family medicine (r=0.23). Professional identity had a moderately strong positive relationship with both commitment to the organization (r=0.41), and job satisfaction (r=0.43). In multivariate regressions, race/ethnicity was associated with both professional identity (P