“Putting a plaster on a festering wound”: Perspectives on wellbeing initiatives amongst early career medical and academic professionals

Yañez Ospina, Claudia Mylena (2024) “Putting a plaster on a festering wound”: Perspectives on wellbeing initiatives amongst early career medical and academic professionals. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis explores employee wellbeing practices, specifically perceptions and experiences of wellbeing interventions in academia and the medical profession. It utilises a social constructionism approach to understanding the experiences pertaining to wellbeing at work of junior doctors and Early Career Researchers (ECRs). Using photo-elicitation semistructured interviews, this research examines wellbeing practices amongst junior doctors and ECRs. A Foucauldian perspective, particularly the notions of the neoliberal subject, governmentality and technologies of the self, is utilised to explore employer-led wellbeing interventions and the tensions that exist when individuals are presented with wellbeing interventions as well as the responsibility that relies on them as ‘neoliberal subjects’ to comply with the neoliberal organisations systems (e.g. audit culture, accountability and performativity). This thesis also draws on a sociological framework by looking at wellbeing as relational and processual, in terms of relationships with others. The relational approach to wellbeing explores the experiences of wellbeing; the type of relationships that individuals forge and how these within the workplace can shape the way wellbeing is experienced. Owing to dominant discourses of wellbeing which centre on individualistic behaviours and the responsibilisation for their own wellbeing, then within the workplace domain, this may also lead to the assumption that it is the ‘choice’ of the employee to participate in these interventions and act responsibly towards their own wellbeing. The findings in this research points to three themes: alternatives to resist to the neoliberal workplace and wellbeing discourse; the nature of work and possibilities of managing working conditions; and wellbeing practices outwith the workplace. These themes were analysed using crosscutting themes such as relationality, time and space, and the ‘ideal worker’ and ‘extreme work’ notions. This thesis has contributed to look at wellbeing as relational and processual which enable further understanding on how and why employees’ relationships with others (people, as well as animals and plants) shape their wellbeing practices beyond the workplace.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > Adam Smith Business School > Management
• Supervisor's Name: Johansson, Dr. Marjana and Robinson, Professor Sarah
• Date of Award: 2024
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2024-84832
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 29 Jan 2025 08:33
• Last Modified: 31 Jan 2025 11:35
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.84832
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/84832