Participants in this study described values influencing their practice choices that are consistent with social accountability. These include valuing provision of holistic care, making a difference, and responding to patient and community needs. Providing holistic care included supporting patients’ medical and social needs through understanding the context of individual patients’ life circumstances and addressing community needs. Participants described experiences and circumstances before medical school that shaped these values such as upbringing, previous education, or occupational experiences. Residency experiences provided exposure to practice settings that made it possible to practice in ways consistent with these values. Participants less commonly spoke about their experiences in medical training as being important for shaping values. Participants derived professional satisfaction from being able to practise in a way they believed was consistent with their values. Quotations reflecting values consistent with social accountability shaping practice choices, including the association with professional satisfaction, can be found in Box 1.

“For me it is related to social justice. So yeah, in short, I think for me it’s about sort of supporting communities’ rights to access or to live healthy fulfilled lives with like a very holistic view of health. And the way that plays out for me personally is that when I’m working in settings where I feel that I’m able to move the dial in that direction” (Female FP, British Columbia)

“Like I really want to be doing something that feels meaningful to me, and feels that it’s in line with my values and … I don’t know, like I want to be able to.… Like it sounds super cliché or whatever but I want to be able to feel like I’m making some kind of difference, and that what I’m doing is important” (Female FP, Nova Scotia)

“Probably I’d say flexibility and, yeah, just kind of like continuing to get better at what I do. Like a good learning atmosphere, I think that’s something that’s very important to me, too.… That it’s a place with good colleagues who are kind of interested and engaged in getting better and teaching. And like where there’s opportunities where I can work with a specialist to kind of learn more and get better at certain things” (Male FP, Nova Scotia)

“The medical school there [in Newfoundland] like the dean who was there at the time were very much interested in kind of a social accountability like paradigm or model. And I don’t know that that’s necessarily something that … I mean I think we all want to be socially accountable. But I don’t know that that’s something that was a huge driver for me. But I felt that that push and that obligation from the medical school that it’s an important thing to work rurally, it’s an important thing to be a comprehensive generalist, like it was a really huge mandate in the medical school. And like I still definitely feel that now. Like if I did give up my family practice to do something more focused, I would definitely have guilt about kind of like letting down like my mentors, you know. Because I think that that was something that was really instilled where I went to school” (Male FP, Nova Scotia)

“I do want to, you know, be doing something that I feel is making a difference and has meaning. So you know, that has actually been one of my challenges with family medicine, is sometimes I feel like I am just plugging away in a system” (Female FP, British Columbia)