Transitions in health professions education?

Abstract

Transitions are ever-present in health professions education. While they can be challenging, affecting learners’ well-being adversely, they can also offer huge opportunities for intense learning, benefiting learners’ well-being and patient care (Rees 2017). Indeed, successful transitions matter: they can result in a sense of belonging and well-being, positive relationships, plus good engagement and attainment within new contexts (Jindal-Snape 2016). In this presentation, Charlotte will answer two questions pertaining to transitions in health professions education: (1) what are transitions across health professions education? and (2) how can we help students and health professionals navigate educational transitions? In terms of understandings of transitions, Charlotte will explain the multiplicity of definitions of transitions and the different conceptions from the higher education literature i.e. transitions as induction, development and becoming, illustrating the fluidity of transitions (Gale & Parker 2014). She will also outline the key tenets of Multiple and Multi-dimensional Transitions (MMT) Theory (Jindal-Snape 2016), emphasising the complexity of transitions. For example, health professionals can experience both temporal (e.g. into higher education, into clinical learning, into clinical practice, into clinical leadership) and spatial transitions (e.g. urban-rural, Asia-Australia, clinician-academic). With respect to factors facilitating transitions, Charlotte will discuss factors at the individual (e.g. learner motivation, resilience, emotion regulation, identities), interpersonal (e.g. good supervision, peer support, positive role-modelling) and organisational levels (e.g. transition interventions, healthy work environments: Hyde 2015; Naylor et al. 2016). This presentation hopes to stimulate delegates’ understandings of educational transitions for ultrasound students and professionals, plus stimulate discussion of how we can better help ultrasound students and professionals through their ongoing, multiple and multi-dimensional educational transitions.