Sliding Doors: Pivotal Research Decisions and Their Influence on Exploring Sensitive Topics

This paper is the third in a series that qualitatively explores sensitive topics in health professions education (HPE). Here, our purpose is to consider how researchers' topical, methodological, and theoretical design choices create myriad up and downstream effects impacting study processes, outcomes, and – ultimately – implications for practice. Specifically, this paper uses the Sliding Doors metaphor as a thought exercise to consider alternate research paths for Geringer and colleagues' exploration of the imposter phenomenon (Paper 2), contemplating the what ifs had authors used a different methodology, incorporated other theoretical lenses, or chose to focus their exploration of self-assessment from an entirely different vantage point. By imagining how design decisions at critical junctures of the research journey simultaneously open and close doors to different ways of understanding, we aim to both highlight the richness and complexity of qualitative inquiry, and inspire researchers to consider the multiple pathways available for exploring sensitive topics in ways that are rigorous, creative, and ethically sound.