Now you see me, now you don't: A critical narrative review of educator identity in health professions education.

INTRODUCTION

Health professions educators occupy a unique position at the intersection of clinical practice, education and service. Despite their central role, educator identity remains under-recognised and insufficiently theorised within academic medicine, where clinical expertise and research dominate traditional hierarchies of value. This review offers an integrated understanding of educator identity by foregrounding the interplay among the self, institutional structures and the broader sociocultural milieu of health professions education (HPE).

METHODS

We conducted a critical narrative review using an interpretive approach. A multidisciplinary Scopus search identified empirical and non-empirical English-language studies published between 2000 and 2025 that engaged conceptually with educator identity in HPE. Selected studies were analysed through a layered interpretive lens drawing on sociological, psychological, psychosocial and sociocultural perspectives to examine how educator identity is conceptualised, negotiated and sustained within sociocultural context of the field.

RESULTS

Sixteen studies informed three interconnected interpretive perspectives synthesised through the metaphor of a disciplinary 'home'. Our synthesis suggests that HPE remains a partially constructed discipline that is fragmented, under-formalised and unevenly institutionalised. Within this home, two heuristic identity trajectories were identified: full inhabitants, who orient their primary professional identities towards HPE, and dual citizens, whose educator identity coexists alongside their disciplinary (clinical) identities. Rather than representing hierarchical categories, these trajectories reflect different identity orientations asking for personalised forms of institutional support. Across both trajectories, educator identity is shaped by individual agency, institutional structures and the hidden curriculum that governs legitimacy and recognition.

CONCLUSION

Educator identity in HPE is shaped by the interaction between individual aspirations and the structural conditions within which educational work is recognised and valued. Strengthening HPE requires institutional structures that provide identity scaffolding, value diverse educator identities and sustain HPE both as a scholarly discipline and a professional home to support those who seek to build a primary identity within it, while also enabling flexible and meaningful participation for those who enter from adjacent professional domains.