Objective  To examine the status quo of and group disparity in professional identity among Chinese medical graduates for providing evidence to develop relevant intervention programs.

  Methods  Using stratified cluster sampling and China Medical Students Survey (CMSS) designed by National Center for Health Professionals Education Development, an onsite self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted among 11 596 medical graduates in 33 universities in 19 provincial-level administrative divisions across China during July 2019.

  Results  For the 10 062 (86.77% of all graduates) valid respondents, the overall average score for professional identity was 3.61 ± 0.63 and the average scores of dimensional professional identity were 3.17 ± 0.60 for cognition, 3.60 ± 0.71 for emotion, 3.68 ± 1.01 for commitment, 4.08 ± 0.75 for behavior, 3.70 ± 0.9 for expectation, and 3.45 ± 0.74 for values, respectively. The results of multivariate regression analysis showed that the respondents with following characteristics were more likely to have a higher professional identity: studying at universities in eastern China (β = 0.034, P = 0.013) and in central China (β = 0.092, P < 0.001), being male (β = 0.025, P = 0.019), from rural regions before entering university (β = 0.023, P = 0.045), with medium family income (β = 0.025, P = 0.028), studying at a university being first choice for admission (β = 0.031, P = 0.002), studying at universities not belonging to double first-class university (β = 0.085, P < 0.001), with the career ideal of to be a doctor while being a senior high school student (β = 0.249, P < 0.001), being a five-year-system medical student (β = – 0.065, P < 0.001), being an integrated long school system (5 + 3 years) student (β = – 0.098, P < 0.001), and with a higher academic performance shortly by the graduation (β = 0.136, P < 0.001 and β = 0.082, P < 0.001 for those with the academic score of highest quartile and second/third quartile in ranking).

  Conclusion  The professional identity is at a medium level and affected by multiple individual and academic environment factors among Chinese medical graduates.