Taking on the Role of Doctor: A Dramaturgical Analysis of Professionalization*

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Abstract
This paper applies dramaturgical analysis to the study of professional socialization in an innovative medical school. Using concepts from the theater, professionalization is seen as critically involving performances before legitimating audiences. The data were collected by means of participant observation and interviews of a cohort of students as they proceeded through the professionalizing career.Good acting demands that you are convincing in your part. The audience must be willing to take part in a ritual, in which you represent, say, Hamlet. You must be able to sustain this representation convincingly: that is to say, you must consistently satisfy the audience's imagination and never outrage its acceptance of the fact that yours is a convincing, or consistently credible, Hamlet,…or whatever character you are impersonating (Guthrie, 1971:11).