The die‐hards, negotiators and migrants: Portraits of doctors' career pathways through specialisation

Global workforce shortages in medical specialties strain healthcare systems, jeopardising patient outcomes. Enhancing recruitment strategies by supporting professional identity (PI) development may be one way to address this workforce gap-yet little research has explored this topic. The goal of the current study was to explore specialty-specific recruitment through considering PI. As proposed causes of workforce shortages in anatomical pathology (AP) bear similarities to many other specialties, this study uses the field of AP as a model for specialist PI development and asks: (1) why, how and when do doctors choose to pursue AP training and (2) what can be learned from this for recruitment to AP and other specialties?