Designing narrative for professional development: A programme for improving international health care practitioners’ cultural competence

Abstract

To maintain and improve skills for practice, health care professionals across all disciplines need to engage in ongoing professional development. However, helping clinicians learn and apply new knowledge in practice can be challenging. This article reports on a purpose-designed professional development programme targeting experienced practitioners of a particular music therapy, focusing on their cultural competency. The author conceptualised a workshop format with a relevant clinical scenario at its centre. She describes how she developed the programme, which she subsequently delivered to an international community of 57 practitioners attending professional development conferences. To capture participants’ reactions and evidence of their new thinking applied to an everyday clinical practice, she used Brookfield’s Critical Incident Questionnaire (CIQ). Her analysis of the data, which provided feedback on the training scenario and structured group discussion materials, found that this continuing professional development training workshop was effective in challenging clinicians to think differently, and to plan the application of their newly acquired knowledge to their everyday practice. This paradigmatic case study contributes new knowledge towards the current reform of health systems, where achieving person-centred health care depends on the ongoing professional development of established health practitioners. Replacing traditional health care, where the patient receiving treatment is accorded a passive role, person-centred health care engages patients’ active participation in their therapy. Practitioners who have graduated a while ago therefore need to change some of their ingrained practices and approaches in treating their clients and patients, which will then lead to improved health outcomes.