Abstract

BackgroundThe activities and work demands of medical professionals, including occupational physicians (OPs), fall into three categories: clinical, academic, and administrative. Work demands of an OP consist of these three categories and additional specialty specific roles and competencies. Research on the core competencies and skills required for OPs have identified high levels of consensus amongst OPs internationally, however these opinions have not been examined between areas of practice specific groups. Furthermore, it has been identified that to a large extent academics are often the group who define the skills required of OPs. The aim of this study is to compare the opinions of OPs grouped by field of practice on the common core competencies required for occupational health (OH) practice using results from an international survey.MethodsAn international modified Delphi study conducted among OPs, completed in two rounds (Rating-Round 1; Ranking-Round 2) using developed questionnaires based on the specialist training syllabus of a number of countries and expert discussions. Respondents were categorised as Physician, Manager/Physician, and Academic/Physician, based on self-reported job titles and place of work.ResultsThere was good agreement between the Physician and Manager/Physician groups, with the Academic/Physician group deviating the most. The top three and bottom three principle domains (PDs) were in good agreement across all groups. The top three were clinically based and would be considered core OH activities. The PDs with considerable intergroup variance were Environmental Issues Related to Work Practice and Communication Skills, categories which may reflect direct relevance and relative importance to the job tasks of respective groups.ConclusionThis study demonstrated general agreement between the three occupational groups. Academic/Physician opinions deviate the most, while good agreement is depicted between the Physician and Manager/Physician groups. The findings of this study can help identify potential gaps in training requirements for OPs and be used as a stepping stone to developing training programmes that are reflective of practice and tailored for those predominantly undertaking these specific roles.

Highlights

  • The activities and work demands of medical professionals, including occupational physicians (OPs), fall into three categories: clinical, academic, and administrative

  • Area of practise follows the pattern of the groupings, with the majority of the Physician and Manager/Physician groups being between the healthcare and industry sectors, the majority of the ‘Academic/Physician’ being in the academic sector

  • This study has compared perspectives on the competencies required of OPs, by field of practice

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Summary

Introduction

The activities and work demands of medical professionals, including occupational physicians (OPs), fall into three categories: clinical, academic, and administrative. Research on the core competencies and skills required for OPs have identified high levels of consensus amongst OPs internationally, these opinions have not been examined between areas of practice specific groups. Work demands of an Occupational Physician (OP) consist of these three recognised categories and additional specialty specific roles and competencies, including for example assessment of workplace hazards, knowledge of health & safety and disability legislation, and environmental assessments, [3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Occupational Hazards to Health were consistently ranked as the most important competency by OPs [6, 10], whereas customers of OH services considered Law and Ethics the most important skill for OPs [8]

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