Our research focuses on surgical workplace learning, construction of work identity and workplace guidance. The purpose is to describe the everyday practices of both surgical residents and nursing staff. Thus, aim is to understand surgical work and learning from the points of views of different professional cultures and organization. Workplace learning and guidance will be examined from three different viewpoints. Firstly, intermediate processes of individual and social learning in surgical work are investigated. Seeing workplace learning as a holistic and ubiquitous process which takes place through normal work practices (Beckett & Hager 2002; Billett 2006; Hodkinson et al. 2004) surgical workplace learning is investigated with respect to the individual and social practices. Secondly, using the concept of identity as a mediating concept in researching work and learning (Fenwick 2006; Kirpal 2004; Brown & Kirpal 2004), our research focuses on the construction and the negotiations of surgical work identities. Special emphasis is laid on the role of age negotiations in relation to work-related identities in the working community. Thirdly, interaction and guidance, professional relationships and the development of professional expertise in surgical work are examined. Focusing on surgical residents’ clinical supervision (Hamdorf & Hall 2000; Kilminster & Zukas 2005) the aim is to find out what kinds of clinical and educational guidance are available and how these can be enhanced as an integral part of surgical work.

A collective ethnographic study, with a team of three researchers, is being conducted. Observations and interviews with surgical residents and nurses are being collected in a surgical clinic in Jyväskylä Central hospital in Finland. Other qualitative analytical tools are used alongside ethnographic methods.

First findings indicate that the construction of surgical identity is one of the most important intermediating processes of individual and collective learning in the clinical environment. In addition, surgical identities are constituted in interaction and in constant negotiations in the surgical work community. The interprofessional nature of surgical work needs to be strategically strengthened. Thus, the learning and acquisition of surgical skills and the construction of surgical identity should not be seen as separate, but as interwoven. There is an urgent need to find the means to support both the development of surgical skills and the construction of surgical identity in the workplace.