Becoming Pharmacists:Professional Identity Struggles of a Profession in Transition

The role and responsibilities of pharmacists have changed considerably over the past decade. Activities like independent prescribing, administering vaccines, and public health screening have fundamentally changed due to what the public expects of pharmacists - and what pharmacists think and believe about their own roles and value contributions to the healthcare system. This thesis questioned the significant value placed on the clinical knowledge, roles, and functions in pharmacy education, coupled with the documented challenges associated with enacting these roles and functions in practice. Alongside, there were conversations about professional identity formation in health professions education, with particular emphasis on the role of professional education and training in guiding identity development. This led to the primary purpose of this thesis, which was to identify discourses (institutionalized ideas, norms, and practices that contribute to the socio-cultural dimensions of the learning environment) at play in pharmacy education and practice that pharmacy students and pharmacists engage with when constructing and performing their professional identities. We aimed to uncover the messages and cues that these discourses convey about what it means to be a pharmacist in the 21st century