Distinct Profession Research Articles

Between virtue and profession: Theorising the rise of professionalised public participation practitioners.

Participatory planning practice is changing in response to the rise of specially trained public participation practitioners who intersect with but are also distinct from planners. These practitioners are increasingly being professionalised through new standards of competence defined by their industry bodies. The implications of this are not well accounted for in empirical studies of participatory planning, nor in the theoretical literature that seeks to understand both the potential and problems of more deliberative approaches to urban decision-making. In this paper, we revisit the sociological literature on the professions and use it to critically interrogate an observed tension between the 'virtues' of public participation (justice, equity and democracy) and efforts to consolidate public participation practice into a distinct profession that interacts with but also sits outside of professional planning.

The Use of a Two-Phase Online Delphi Panel Methodology to Inform the Concurrent Development of a School-Based Ovulatory Menstrual Health Literacy Intervention and Questionnaire.

IntroductionThere are a high prevalence of ovulatory-menstrual (OM) dysfunction and low levels of menstrual health literacy in adolescents, yet few evidence-based OM health education resources for schools.MethodThis two-phase study used an online Delphi methodology to build consensus across thirty-five purposively selected professionals from the diverse professions of health and education. The panellists were tasked to inform the development of a school-based OM health literacy resources.ResultsIn Round One, 86% of panellists determined the scope of these resources using guided and open-ended questions. The study then split into two phases which ran concurrently. In the first phase informing the intervention's development, 57% of panellists participated in Round Two, and 29% reviewed selected lessons. In the second phase informing the questionnaire's development, 51% of panellists participated in Round Two, and 69% in Round Three. The overall consensus reached for the intervention phase and questionnaire phase were 82% and 84%, respectively. The Panel's recommendations included a strengths-based position to counter menstrual stigma, teaching accurate self-report of cycle biomarkers, addressing multiple menstrual dysfunctions and adopting a whole-school approach.ConclusionAlthough time-consuming and requiring a sustained interest, this two-phase Delphi methodology offered anonymity to panellists from distinct professions which facilitated their independent contribution to developing OM health literacy school resources.

Support for a new credential in urban forestry: Results from a survey of urban forest professionals

Urban forest professionals struggle with public recognition and a clear identity in spite of growing demand for their expertise. No single credential or professional support system defines or unites urban forest professionals, who instead rely on several closely allied professions for professional support. This reliance is thought to contribute to this lack of recognition and indistinct professional identity. Thus we asked urban forest professionals if they believed the urban forestry profession needs its own credential and, if such a credential were available, would they obtain it. An international survey resulted in 749 respondents from 13 countries, with the vast majority from the United States and Canada. On average, respondents believed a credential was needed and would obtain it if offered. Late-career professionals were less likely to say they would obtain such a credential, while there was some evidence that women and early-career respondents are more likely. Some groups, most notably the self-employed, were much less likely to think a credential was needed and even less likely to obtain it were it to be offered. Respondents already hold 2.38 credentials on average, the most commonly held credentials being from the closely allied professions of arboriculture and forestry. Without specifying the format or scope, the survey asked respondents for opinions about a hypothetical urban forestry credential. Respondents raised concerns related to whether a credential could embrace the full scope of urban forestry, whether there was overlap or redundancy among existing credentials, and the cost of obtaining additional credentials. In addition, respondents noted credentials may need to align with diverse regulatory and employment environments. Nonetheless, open-ended responses overwhelmingly noted that urban forestry has emerged as a distinct profession that merits a credential to support a unifying identity and recognize the specialized training required.

Maturity on the Horizon: Is the United Arab Emirates Ready for a Teacher Educator Framework?

Purpose: Research on teacher educators is fragmented but different trends are emerging from a variety of contexts that recognize it as a distinct profession. This research aims to highlight the features of a potential UAE teacher educator framework that has emerged from my research on authentic professional learning, and where professional learning might be focused in the future to build on teacher educators’ professional knowledge in the UAE. This paper explores the potential characteristics of a UAE Teacher Educator Framework through the methodological lens of narrative inquiry. Approach/Methodology/Design: Teacher educators have formal associations in the USA, Belgium, The Netherlands, Israel, and Australia and these associations have professionalized the industry and created standards and frameworks to support professional learning. No such associations or standards exist in the United Arab Emirates. Drawing on the work of Keltchermans (2018), Kreijns (2019) and the existing frameworks from other contexts, this paper illustrates the potential blueprint for the UAE education sector. Findings: The findings suggest that inter-cultural learning and sensory awareness of the contextual factors that underpin the sector may allow teacher educators to feel empowered to support teachers and their peers in a complex cultural and economic environment. Practical Implications: The practical implications propose a new way of working and thinking within the UAE context, and the framework can be applied and adapted to both the public and private sectors. Originality/value: Teacher educators have formal associations in the USA, Belgium, The Netherlands, Israel, and Australia and these associations have professionalized the industry and created standards and frameworks to support professional learning. No such associations or standards exist in the United Arab Emirates so this work offers significant value in an under-researched space.

Atlas PainCare: Preliminary feedback on a chronic pain interprofessional mentoring program

Research supports the use of interprofessional care to manage chronic pain. Despite ample programs for patients and continuing education for clinicians, we see a gap in provider mentorship for skill building and implementation. Atlas PainCare is a program we are developing to provide mentorship to enhance care delivery by helping clinicians and organizations build the tools, pain science knowledge base, administrative support, and interprofessional teamwork required to implement best practice. Atlas PainCare's Mentoring Group helps interprofessional teams develop care structures for patients with chronic pain using multimodal, evidence-based, and patient-centered approaches that focus on minimizing opioid use and promoting self-management. The purpose of this study was to collect feedback from potential mentee teams about the Atlas PainCare program. Feedback is being used to refine the program before implementation. Clinical chronic pain teams of at least two distinct professions were invited to participate. Participants attended an information session to review the proposed program and ask questions. Participants unable to attend, viewed a recording of the session. We then conducted virtual semi-structured focus groups to elicit feedback about Atlas PainCare's utility, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers. Focus groups were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed for themes using NVivo. We collected feedback from 4 teams (12 participants) representing PT, MD, CRNP, SW, PsyD, OT, and dental and spanning multiple settings. The feedback fell into four themes: overall feedback, perceived barriers, perceived strengths, and suggestions for improvement. Our conclusions coalesce around: Affirmations: feedback supporting planned program design a. mentor team make up b. inter-team sharing c. well-designed technology platform for clear communication d. mentoring for team functioning and financial support Improvements: feedback prompting us to consider design alterations a. reducing time demand b. clarifying role definitions c. incorporating patient voices d. enhancing interprofessional resources

Learning by concordance (LbC) to develop professional reasoning skills: AMEE Guide No. 141

Developing effective clinical reasoning is central to health professions education. Learning by concordance (LbC) is an on-line educational strategy that makes learners practice reasoning competency in case-based clinical situations. The questions asked are similar to those professionals ask themselves in their practice and participant answers are compared to those of a reference panel. When participants answer the questions, they receive an automated feedback that is two-fold as they see (1) how the panelists respond and (2) justifications each panelist gives for their answer. This provides rich contextual knowledge about the situation, supplemented by a synthesis summarizing crucial points. As many educators in the health sciences are engaging in introducing innovative approaches, many consider building LbC learning modules. Elaborating, designing and implementing a LbC tool remain a challenge. This AMEE Guide describes the steps and elements to be considered when designing a LbC tool, drawing on examples from distinct health professions: medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, and dentistry. Specifically, the following elements will be discussed: (1) LbC theoretical underpinnings; (2) principles of LbC questioning; (3) goals of the concordance-based activity; (4) nature of reasoning tasks; (5) content/levels of complexity; (6) reference panel; (7) feedback/synthesis messages; (8) on-line learning platforms.

The Role of Educational Theory in the Future Development of Paramedicine as a Profession: An Integrative Review

Introduction Paramedicine is at a critical juncture in its history as a healthcare profession. The evolution of paramedic practice in Australia over recent decades has culminated in its inclusion as a nationally registered, accredited, healthcare profession, while similar development is also occurring worldwide. Although paramedic education has developed over time, it is now the moment to determine whether existing educational approaches can adequately support its ongoing evolution as a profession. This article shares findings of a systematic, integrative review of characteristics of professions, allied health education and paramedic education literature. Methods Due to too little current research on approaches to paramedic education, the review aimed to distil essential requirements of professional education in general, and paramedic education in particular. This distillation served as an initial point of comparison with existing educational approaches in paramedicine. Literature was iteratively searched using PubMed, ScienceDirect and EBSCOhost megafile ultimate search engines, and was complemented with manual searches via professional networks, reference searches and Google Scholar. Results The literature review highlighted consistent themes relevant to paramedic education such as, the socio-political definition of a profession, methods for the identification of a profession, paramedicine as a distinct healthcare profession and the contemporary paramedic education framework. Conclusion Based on findings from this integrative review, we conclude that there is a potential misalignment between existing paramedic curricula and the educational scaffolding required to develop practicing paramedic professionals. We recommend further investigation of this potential misalignment as part of conceptualising an effective, quality, educational framework that is fit-for-purpose.

HRD professional education provision in the UK: past, present and future

ABSTRACT The professionalization of occupations has led to the increased demand for specialized knowledge in many fields, in response to which Higher Education (HE) institutions have provided professional education programmes. The purpose of this paper is to address a need for research into the history and current position of professional education in Human Resource Development (HRD) in the UK and to consider the problem of the extent to which HRD can be regarded as a profession. The paper reports findings from a mixed methods study comprising an audit of the postgraduate HRD programme provision in UK universities and a symposium at which the perspectives of key informants were captured. There is evidence of declining use of the term `HRD’ in programme titles, and of contestation and conflict between the professional education of HRD and Human Resource Management (HRM). The paper argues for regarding HRD as symbiotic in relation to HRM, rather than as a distinct profession. It identifies the implications of this conceptualization for professional education in the field and discusses the relevance of experience in the UK for HRD internationally.

‘My Master and Friend’: Social Networks and Professional Identity in American Medicine, 1789–1815

Summary Between 1789 and 1813, over 3,000 men received medical instruction in Philadelphia from physician and educator Benjamin Rush. Despite the fact that on average students remained for only 1.4 years of formal education, this cohort of American doctors formulated a national and professional identity grounded in shared experiences and fostered through interpersonal networks. This essay argues that a networked approach to studying early American doctors will provide more robust information about the development of a distinctive American medical profession in the nineteenth century. Using large data sets gleaned from manuscript sources this project uncovers patterns of migration and communication for otherwise invisible American medical men.

Signature Pedagogies for Art Therapy Education: A Delphi Study

Due to shifting standards in art therapy education and licensure an examination of how educators are preparing students for professional practice is warranted. This Delphi study used the framework of signature pedagogies to identify discipline-specific methods used by art therapy educators to teach students how to think, practice, and develop the ethics and values of the art therapy profession. A sample of 18 art therapy educators reached consensus on three common teaching methods and pedagogical worldview deemed essential to the education of art therapists: (a) experiential teaching and learning using art materials, (b) practicum/internship placements, and (c) art-based experiential learning. The results substantiate the claim that art therapy is a distinct profession with teaching methods differentiated from related disciplines.

Commentaries on health services research

Commentaries on health services research

Training, education, and experience of active duty army pharmacy officers

ObjectiveTo create a summary of training, education, and experience by pharmacy officer rank (colonel, lieutenant colonel, major, and captain) to produce information for senior pharmacy leaders to describe active duty army pharmacy officers and for junior army pharmacy officers to use for individual career planning. MethodsA 32-question, anonymous, and voluntary survey was developed. Active duty army pharmacy officers were able to complete the survey via the government website, Intelink. The survey was open for 6 weeks during the summer of 2017. ResultsThe survey was completed by 62% of active duty army pharmacy officers. The responses were used to create a summary of training, education, and experience by pharmacy officer rank. ConclusionThe survey was successful in capturing information relating to training, education, and experience by rank, thereby providing useful quantifiable information to describe army pharmacy officer careers. These results may prove valuable to those interested in pharmacy careers in the military, and they create an opportunity to illustrate the distinct profession of army pharmacy officers.

Development and Use of the Leadership Competencies for Healthcare Services Managers Assessment.

Healthcare management as a profession continues to evolve as the field of healthcare delivery becomes more complex. In some countries, formal degree programs in healthcare management and related professional associations have helped to establish the field as a distinct profession with a defined body of knowledge. In other countries, the professionalization of healthcare management has not developed, or is in the early stages of development. Many of these Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC) have no formal training programs or professional associations to help set and define minimum standards and competencies for the profession. In many countries, national associations have been created by healthcare managers for sharing knowledge, information, and expertise. While major differences exist in the contexts where healthcare managers operate around the world, all have a common responsibility to enhance the leadership and managerial capacity and capability of their membership as well as promote the profession they represent. In spite of these efforts by national professional organizations and various ministries of health, healthcare management has not been universally recognized around the world as a profession. The Leadership Competencies for Healthcare Services Managers (Global Competency Directory) framework developed by the International Hospital Federation's global consortium for healthcare management serves as a catalyst and resource for defining the skills, knowledge, and abilities needed for the healthcare management profession. This article documents the purpose, development, validation, and use of the framework.

Escort Interpreters as the Participants of Communication

Escort interpreting, the highly demanded form of interpreting in domestic market, obtains the least attention in the aspects of academic research, interpreter training and accreditation. In this paper, the author affirms that escort interpreting is a distinctive profession, reveals the differences between conference interpreting and escort interpreting and points out the characteristics of escort interpreting in China. From the perspective of communication, this paper demonstrates that escort interpreting, in nature, is an act of communication. Escort interpreters are participants of the communication who work jointly with their clients to achieve the same goal of the communication. They adopt proper communicative strategies to protect the result of the communication and sometimes mediate between the interlocutors of different cultural backgrounds. It is suggested by the author that such characteristics of escort interpreting and escort interpreters should be fully considered when the escort interpreters are trained and accredited.

Factors confronting quantity surveying practice: the case of Nigeria

PurposeAs the challenges confronting a system are better addressed when known and understood, this paper aims to report the findings of a study that investigated the factors confronting professional quantity surveying using Nigeria as a case.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire was developed and pre-tested as the instrument for collecting data. A total of 64 quantity surveyors practicing in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Enugu completed the questionnaire out of a non-probabilistic sample of 100. Severity Index and Spearman rank correlation coefficient were used in data analysis.FindingsThe outcome revealed that the top five factors perceived to be confronting the profession include poor marketing of the profession, opposition from engineers, the dominance of multinational companies that do not have quantity surveying as a distinct profession in their country of origin, widespread corruption in Nigeria and professional incompetence of some quantity surveyors. Furthermore, the two categories of respondents – professional quantity surveyors and probationers – agree in their ranking of the factors confronting the profession. The ranking of the 17 factors between the two categories of respondents was tested using Spearman’s rho. The result showed that the difference in perception of professional members of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors and the probationers with regard to factors confronting the quantity surveying profession is not significant at p < 0.01. These findings are then discussed in the light of previous works, and implications for both academics and professionals within the quantity surveying profession were highlighted.Originality/valueThis study has highlighted the key issues to consider as stakeholders attempt to advance the course of quantity surveying and construction cost management profession.

Licensed Acupuncturists Join the Veterans Health Administration.

This article introduces changes occurring in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) with respect to the delivery of acupuncture. The VHA has published a new occupation code and job qualification standard allowing licensed acupuncturists to practice at the VHA medical centers. This policy shift comes at a time of great need for complementary and integrative health (CIH) options for veterans as identified by the advancing research, policies, and legislation that support CIH. The VHA initiatives include fostering an understanding of the distinct profession of licensed acupuncturists, developing an appreciation of the emerging evidence for acupuncture, and creating the cultural shift to support a wider view of CIH services. Historically, acupuncture was provided in the VHA mostly by physician-acupuncturists and chiropractic acupuncturists. The publication of a qualification standard for licensed acupuncturists allows the VHA to increase its provider base and create cost savings for the delivery of acupuncture. This move requires overcoming barriers to the integration of licensed acupuncturists into the VHA system. The goal is to increase the utilization of acupuncture among veterans.

Normative and Institutional Frameworks for the Functioning of Supervision in Social Work

Supervision is understood as a professional, formative, administrative and managerial practice provided by an experimented professional to a professional in the same field, with the purpose of transfering knowledge and training specific competences, useful in his practice with the purpose of providing as qualitative as possible services to its own beneficiaries. The article reviews a series of normative frameworks based on which the process of supervision of social services in countries such as Singapore, New Zeeland, Australia, Canada, USA, Great Britain and Romania. By comparatively analyzing these frameworks, we noticed that generally, there are two models formulated – the first one which regards the supervisor as a professional with experiece in social work, and the other model sees supervision as a distinct profession with transdisciplinary nature, but with access limited by the need for an initial training and previous experience in the field of social work. We notice that, in general, the national frameworks identify three functions of supervision: administrative, formative and managerial, and place a special emphasis on the role of the supervisor as trainer in the field of professional ethics.

Genetics in multiple sclerosis: Updates in the era of big data

AbstractMultiple sclerosis is a complex disease where both genetics and environmental factors play critical roles in its susceptibility. The contribution of genetics has been proven by familial studies, but there still exists missing heritability. Big data science has been a novel approach in research, including multiple sclerosis genetics, and multiple tools to handle those big data have been developed for researchers in different fields: from tools with a user‐friendly graphical user interface to more professional tools with a text user interface. In this era of big data, it is important to accelerate collaborative studies with researchers of distinct professions, such as bioinformaticians, statisticians, geneticists and computational biologists.

The purpose of education: pedagogues’ and teachers’ negotiations in Danish primary schools

In 2014, the Danish primary school system went through a major reform. One main change is the greater participation of pedagogues in school. This is a dramatic change both for teachers and for pedagogues, a distinct profession, traditionally working outside school and representing a creative and social approach to learning and wellbeing. This article examines how teachers and pedagogues in an action research project negotiate their new common work and which understandings of good pedagogical practice these negotiations express. The article shows that international educational rationales about learnification and attainment that are found in the Danish reform, affect the professionals’ understandings of professionalism and educational practices, and that this marginalises some traditional pedagogical practices. However, the article also shows that both pedagogues and teachers critique dominant educational policy rationales and explore what space for action exists in the reform.

Research on the Cooperation between Universities and Enterprises in Career Technical College

Higher vocational and technical education is an important part of higher education in China. It is a specialized organization to train applied talents for the country. Vocational and technical education in China has made important progress in recent years. But in recent years, Career Technical College graduate employment difficulties. University-enterprise cooperation is the basic way to cultivate talents in Career Technical College, and is also a notable feature of modern higher vocational education. Practice has proved that the cooperation between school and enterprise is a window for students to contact the society. Career Technical College can only meet the needs of social and economic development through extensive cooperation between schools and enterprises. This activity is conducive to the creation of a distinctive new profession and the employment of graduates. At present, there are still many problems in the process of cooperation between universities and enterprises in Career Technical College. This requires the joint efforts of both schools and enterprises to explore the school enterprise win-win measures.