To be or not to be: agency and resilience of early career general practitioners 

According to the World Health Organization, most of a person's health needs are met at the primary health care (PHC) level throughout their lifetime. However, the shortage of general practitioners (GPs) is a serious problem in many countries worldwide, including Latvia. In addition, young doctors have little motivation to pursue a career in family medicine, and one in three existing general practitioners is of pension age. However, the resilience and well-being of healthcare professionals directly affect patient safety, and the quality of care provided.  

Based on semi-structured interviews with early-career general practitioners in Latvia and participant observations further on, I ask what prevents final-year students from opting for family medicine, in other words, what makes them turn away from such pressing collective needs. I also ask how being under the pressure of different socio-economic circumstances (e.g. low prestige and lack of challenge, lower financial opportunities, bureaucratic burden, stereotypes, etc.), the choice for PHC is made and what are the factors motivating young professionals to stay in the profession. I am particularly interested in the actors and/or processes that make up resilience besides their personal capabilities, and what role more-than-humans play in it. 

Resilience as a phenomenon worthy of study is relatively new, and such an inclusive approach, moving away from the anthropocentric view, will give new impetus to the resilience literature. Research of this kind is limited and there is a lack of in-depth knowledge on such integrated human-more-than-human relationships that could challenge the current anthropocentric paradigm. The ethnographic research method has the potential to provide more data and thus deeper insight, which is essential to gain new knowledge and reveal important nuances.