Identity types
9
Data collection for this study took place between December 2001 and May 2002 in Twin
Cities Texas
1
. Approximately 140,000 people reside in these adjacent communities (Anderson &
Wakefield, 2001) and the nearest urban centers are approximately 100 miles distant. The Twin
Cities are surrounded by rural and agricultural land for at least 60-90 miles in each direction,
with only isolated small towns in this surrounding area. Although connected to distant urban
areas by state highways, there were a distinct number of physicians in Twin Cities as defined by
the membership roster of the Twin City County Medical Society. As such, respondents for this
study were a subset of the 253 physicians in the Twin City County Medical Society (Anderson &
Wakefield, 2001).
In all, 43 physicians participated in this study. Thirty-four physicians were recruited by
the second author, a practicing physician on the medical school faculty and nine physicians were
recruited by the first author. We also used snowball sampling and in some cases, physicians
would recommend that we talk to specific doctors and these new doctors would be contacted as
well. The sample consisted of 13 Clinic physicians, 14 Group physicians, 14 Solo/Partnership
physicians and 2 Contract physicians (working on contract to hospital or government). Among
the Solo/Partnership doctors, nine were in Solo practitioners, five were in Partnership and of
these five, two were part-time physicians. The breakdown of the physicians in the sample in
terms of organizational contexts is reflected in Table 1.
Physicians in the sample came from a wide variety of specialties as shown in Table 2.
There were a higher number of Family practice physicians in the sample because they make up
approximately 20 percent of the physicians in the area. In fact, there is a Family Practice
residency training program in the area as well as an emphasis in that specialty in the local
medical school. While the distribution of these specialties was not perfectly symmetrical across
Convention