Understanding Clinicians’ Lived Experiences in Teleconsultation and Professional Identity
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Abstract
Digital health systems have transformed modern healthcare by integrating technology into clinical practice, reshaping how clinicians deliver and experience care. Within this transformation, teleconsultation platforms have become central to patient management, yet their impact on clinicians’ lived experiences and professional identity remains insufficiently explored. Existing research has largely focused on usability and adoption metrics, leaving a critical gap in understanding how healthcare professionals interpret and find meaning in their digital interactions. This study employs an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to examine how clinicians navigate empathy, trust, and professional authenticity within teleconsultation environments. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with twelve medical practitioners actively engaged in digital consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis revealed four interrelated themes redefining clinical presence, negotiating trust with technology, reconstructing professional identity, and developing emotional resilience that describe the existential process of adapting to digital care. Findings indicate that clinicians reinterpret their sense of presence and empathy through communicative strategies that compensate for the absence of physical interaction, while also renegotiating trust and responsibility within technology-mediated contexts. This study offers a distinctive contribution by foregrounding the existential and interpretive dimensions of clinicians’ digital practice—an area rarely centered in telemedicine research. These insights deepen the understanding of human experience in digital healthcare, emphasizing the need for human-centered design that preserves empathy and ethical integrity in telemedicine. The study contributes to both theoretical and practical discourse by framing digital transformation as an experiential and interpretive phenomenon rather than merely a technical advancement.
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