Professionalism In America Research Articles

The Postanesthesia Care Unit Nurse: What Does it Take to Become an Expert?

Vince Lombardi once said, “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” Highly motivated people strive to be excellent at their jobs and nurses are some of the most highly motivated professionals in America and across the globe. Nurses serve in literally hundreds of different roles across the breadth of healthcare and are involved in every part of the patient's hospital course. With such numerous and diverse job opportunities in front of us, whether fresh out of nursing school or mid-career, nurses often feel a calling for a particular role and seek it out. For a number of nurses, the Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) becomes their home; at least for period of time. The question at hand however, is that after the newly minted PACU nurse attains the title, how is their growth measured? What skills need to be developed and what is considered competent? Is there such thing as an expert PACU Nurse? Surely, we can agree that we are not all the same. As with all professions, some of us are simply better than others. It has been this way throughout the course of human history and this phenomenon is not absent to the field of nursing. The performance of a group of individuals within a certain job or role can be quickly summarized by drawing a bell curve. A small number of individuals will be in the lowest performing group, another small number will land in the highest performing group and the vast majority of individuals will find themselves firmly planted within the largest area under the curve, which identifies average performers. The question that we all ask ourselves is “How can I become a great nurse” and specifically here, a great PACU nurse. This is an area of little research and after spending over half of my life working in and around PACUs in various hospitals, this question is of particular interest to me. To help answer some of these questions, Dahlberg et al. looked further into the matter and came away with some interesting observations.

Repairing America's Roots: The Citizen Professional Challenge

Abstract This article examines the role professionals can play in expanding the concept and practice of democracy. It argues that the ways professionals are usually socialized to understand their work identities and practices displace or even suppress the popular agency of lay citizens and this has contributed significantly to the shrinking of democracy, since professionals play outsized roles in shaping the institutions of today's knowledge societies. Professionals' transformation into citizens who catalyze citizen energies and talents and work as citizens with other citizens is key to broadening the role of citizens from voters and volunteers, to co-creators and civic producers who are responsible for a democratic way of life. Beginning with a discussion of ways in which the “technocratic paradigm” has detached institutions and professional practices and identities from civic and community life and shrunk understandings of democracy, the article examines traditions of public work and citizen professionalism in America, which are important to recall and translate to new circumstances. It presents several case studies and concludes with suggestions of citizen professionalism as a new frontier for higher education and democracy.

America Needs Nurse Practitioners to Advocate for Social Justice

The era of COVID-19 has highlighted disparities within the health care system. The pandemic, in combination with the death of George Floyd, has resulted in professional organizations condemning racism as a public health issue. But what is the role of individual nurse practitioners in addressing systemic racism within the healthcare system? The Code of Ethics for Nurses requires that all nurses actively work to reduce disparities. The code states that universal access to nursing is a human right and that health must be considered in the frame of social determinants. America needs nurse practitioners to reimagine the healthcare system and to develop policy and legislation that results in change. Nurse practitioners are among the most trusted professionals in America, and we can help the country heal from centuries-old injustices.

Repairing America's Roots: The Citizen Professional Challenge

Abstract This article examines the role professionals can play in expanding the concept and practice of democracy. It argues that the ways professionals are usually socialized to understand their work identities and practices displace or even suppress the popular agency of lay citizens and this has contributed significantly to the shrinking of democracy, since professionals play outsized roles in shaping the institutions of today's knowledge societies. Professionals' transformation into citizens who catalyze citizen energies and talents and work as citizens with other citizens is key to broadening the role of citizens from voters and volunteers, to co-creators and civic producers who are responsible for a democratic way of life. Beginning with a discussion of ways in which the “technocratic paradigm” has detached institutions and professional practices and identities from civic and community life and shrunk understandings of democracy, the article examines traditions of public work and citizen professionalism in America, which are important to recall and translate to new circumstances. It presents several case studies and concludes with suggestions of citizen professionalism as a new frontier for higher education and democracy.

Latino Professionals in America: Testimonios of Policy, Perseverance, and Success. By Maria Chávez. New York: Routledge, 2019. 224 pp. $37.96 (Paper)

Latino Professionals in America: Testimonios of Policy, Perseverance, and Success. By Maria Chávez. New York: Routledge, 2019. 224 pp. $37.96 (Paper)

Framing the Globalization-Migration Debate: Continuing Impact of U.S. Economic Crises on Indian H1-B Immigrant Professionals in America

Framing the Globalization-Migration Debate: Continuing Impact of U.S. Economic Crises on Indian H1-B Immigrant Professionals in America

Epistemic trajectories: mentoring in a game design practicum

Innovative professionals rely on a specific ways of thinking to solve the nonstandard problems that come up in practice (Goodwin, Am Anthropol 96(3):606–633, 1994; Schon, The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action, 1983; Educating the reflective practitioner: toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions, 1987; Sullivan, Work and integrity: the crisis and promise of professionalism in America, 1995). The professions have reproductive practices for transmitting these ways of thinking, such as practica (Schon, Educating the reflective practitioner: toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions, 1987). In this paper, we examine the learning relationship between a mentor and team of college students through an ethnographic study of a game design practicum at a European arts school. To examine the role that the mentor played in this practicum, we use two theoretical constructs. Epistemic frames—the configurations of the skills, knowledge, identities, values, and epistemologies that professionals use to think in innovative ways—provide a model for examining professional expertise (Shaffer, Comput Educ, 46(3):223–234, 2006a). Epistemic network analysis (ENA) (Shaffer et al., Int J Learn Media, 1(2):33–53, 2009) is a method for quantifying changes in epistemic frames (Shaffer, The bicycle helmets of “Amsterdam”: computer games and the problem of transfer, 2010). Our results here suggest that the mentor leads the team on a path that illuminates the nature of learning to think professionally, as well the function of a mentor in that process. We argue that the mentor, rather than providing a direct map to a professional vantage point, scaffolds aspects of the epistemic frame of game design that, in turn, aid in the development of a more professional frame. Using ENA to understand the way that mentors help coach learners to develop epistemic frames should be useful for further studies of professional education, as well as for studies of apprenticeship-based programs for youth.

Life Can’t Be Any Easier than This—Introduction of the Portable and Disposable V.A.C. Machines

The application of controlled levels of negative pressure on to a wound has been shown to accelerate evacuation of dead cells, debris and fluid which eventually encourages wound healing in a verity of surgical wounds. Vacuum Assisted Closure (V.A.C.) therapy—KCI Medical Limited, the terminology by which this is widely known, became popular, especially among the plastic surgery professionals in America and soon gained recognition worldwide. It is now widely used in the UK to manage and assist healing in a wide variety of wounds. Although KCI’s V.A.C. machines were the only ones on the market for a number of years, several wound management companies have now brought out their own machines and these are now known collectively as topical negative pressure therapy (TNPT). Traditional TNPT is often considered a relatively costly procedure. It is often used in patients with large wounds to facilitate dressing management and promote rapid cleaning and granulation. This may also allow them to be discharged to the community when they would otherwise remain inpatients, thereby saving bed days. Capital purchase of the machines is expensive and hospitals often rent or lease them on a short or long term basis. This can lead to difficulties in arranging the finances for discharge to the community. Subsequent dressing changes (recommended every 48 - 72 hrs) also incur high costs and involvement of the trained medical or nursing staff. As we all know; “Need is the mother of invention”. The disposable TNPT machine (V.A.C. ViaTM KCI Medical Ltd) has been introduced to help to solve these problems. It is a single use machine, inclusive of a dressing and canister and available off the shelf. It is very cost effective, easy to use and is used for small to moderate sized wounds. Senior author is using this machine which excellent results and illustrated the use of this machine with pictures in this paper.

Richard Olding Beard: A Physician with a Calling for Nursing

"I think that if the Christian Scientists had more science and the doctors had more Christianity it wouldn't make any difference which ye called in-if ye had a good nurse" (Dunne, 1901, p. 9). Finley Peter Dunne's "Mr. Dooley" was a Chicago newspaper column that frequently satirized society and politics in the late 19th century. This quote of his reflects the already changing perception of the importance of good nursing, thankfully leaving the image of Sairy Gamp, the slatternly nurse from Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, far behind. In Education for Nursing, James Gray (1960) states that this change in att itude can be att ributed to the revolution in caring for ill people that was sparked by Florence Nightingale. Learning from her success in minimizing mortality among wounded soldiers in the Crimean War and her subsequent reform efforts in England, pioneering nursing professionals in America established organized education programs for nurses. Supported by Nightingale's frequent correspondence, crusaders such as Isabel Hampton Robb, Lavinia Dock, Adelaide Nutt ing, and Lillian Wald modeled their professional lives aft er her example. Nevertheless, the medical establishment did not agree that nurses should be educated. In fact, information about signs and symptoms of illness and the effects of various drugs was censored from nursing programs. Into this arena came Richard Olding Beard. He was a "tiny man with piercing black eyes, pink cheeks, a crisp style of utt erance, and an authoritative manner" (Gray, 1960, p. 16). As the chairman of the physiology department at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine, there is litt le obvious reason why he should become the champion of university education for nurses, but that is exactly what he did. In 1909, when the university leadership and the medical academic community were struggling to find legislative and financial support for the first university hospital building, Beard was able to create the first university-based nursing education program in the world. The pioneering nurse leaders of the time greatly appreciated Beard's insight, passion for nursing, and ability to achieve breakthroughs. While other leaders in medicine were working to restrict the education of nurses, and hospital leaders were exploiting student nurses as a source of cheap labor, Beard's intense focus on the need for higher education for nurses was breaking through considerable resistance. When Beard announced at a joint meeting of the Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses and the Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada that the University of Minnesota would open the first program for collegiate-level education of nurses, "while the audience rose to its feet in glad acclaim of the good news," Isabel Hampton Robb sat and wept "tears that came from a deep gratitude." She told Dr. Beard that "the dream of her life" was about to be fulfilled (Gray, 1960, p. 19). Beard's support of nursing education never wavered. In the 1920s a new debate raged about nursing education. Concerned about the high cost of private duty nursing, Dr. Charles Mayo initiated a campaign for two levels of nursing education. He wrote an article that was published in the popular press titled "Wanted-100,000 Girls for Sub-Nurses." Nursing leaders saw this initiative as an immediate and powerful danger. Nicknamed the "Nestor of Nurses" by his colleagues, Beard responded vigorously and eloquently in an article also published in the popular press. Not that current education programs (other than the University of Minnesota's) were necessarily well-run or easily defended. In a speech before the Central Council of Nursing Education in 1922, Beard described "with complete knowledge and no admonition, the way of the old-fashioned 'institutional' schools of nursing" where "pupil nurses were exploited for the benefit of the hospitals." He commented that the length of the course was determined not by the students' needs but by the hospitals' needs. …

Work and integrity

Sullivan, W.M. Work and Integrity: The Crisis and Promise of Professionalism in America. 2nd ed. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass, 2005. 352 pages. $35.00 (hardcover).

Work and Integrity: The Crisis and Promise of Professionalism in America (review)

William M. Sullivan. Work and Integrity: The Crisis and Promise of Professionalism in America. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004. 327 pp. Cloth: $30.00. ISBN: 0-787-97458-7.

Institutional Theory and Institutional Change: Introduction to the Special Research Forum

Institutional Theory and Institutional Change: Introduction to the Special Research Forum

Psychologists on the March: Science, Practice, and Professionalism in America, 1929-1969, by James H. Capshew.

<i>Psychologists on the March: Science, Practice, and Professionalism in America, 1929-1969</i>, by James H. Capshew.

Work and integrity: the crisis and promise of professionalism in America

Foreword. About the Author. Introduction: The Crisis and Promise of Professionalism. 1. Professionalism. 2. The Evolution of the Professions: From Professions of Office to the Organizational Professions. 3. A Metropolitan Maturity: The Progressives' Struggle for a Civic Professionalism. 4. No Center to Hold: The Era of Expertise . 5. Reinventing Professionalism. 6. Renewing Professional Education. 7. What Is Professional Knowledge? Expertise and the University. 8. Confronting Moral Ambiguity: The Struggle for Professional Ethics. Conclusion: Experts and Citizens. Notes. Index.

Ethical standards for computer professionals: A comparative analysis of four major codes

Professions have adopted ethical codes and codes of conduct. Physicians, lawyers, engineers, and other professionals have moral responsibilities. They know to whom they are responsible. Professionals in the data processing field, too, need to know that they have moral responsibilities and to whom they are responsible. This paper compares and evaluates the ethical codes of four major organizations of computer professionals in America. The analysis is done along the following obligations that every professional has: to society, to the employer, to clients, to colleagues, to the professional organization, and to the profession. Professionals in the information technology field have no single, agreed upon code of conduct. In the US alone there are four organizations promoting four different codes. While some of the behavioral precepts are similar, others are not. People who are members of more than one organization may wonder how they should act in certain circumstances. Furthermore, computer professionals are not provided with any guidance for cases of ethical conflicts. Flaws of the four codes and differences among them are discussed, examples of moral dilemmas are given, and points for improvement are suggested.

Social class and re‐employment: Changes in health and perceived financial circumstances

pattern with those in the lowest levels of organizations having the highest levels of sickness absence, least job satisfaction and the highest reports of stress and psychological strain (Fletcher and Payne, 1980). The evidence that physical and mental health varies by social class amongst the unemployed is much less clear. Rundquist and Sletto (1936) did find that the middle class unemployed had better 'general adjustment' and 'morale'. Cohn (1978) found they had higher satisfaction with self, and Hepworth (1980) found they had fewer symptoms of minor psychiatric morbidity, as well as better levels of satisfaction with life in general. Little (1976) found that almost half of a sample of unemployed technical professionals in America thought that the loss of theirjob, 'might not have been such a bad break after all'. Fineman (1983) studied British managers/professional workers and found many of them did not report severe negative consequences of being unemployed. Kaufman (1982) on the other hand focuses on unemployment amongst technical and professional workers and concludes that, 'the weight of evidence favours the conclusion that the psychological effects of unemployment are likely to be more extreme for professionals than for other workers' (p. 24). Payne, Warr and Hartley (1984) measured the health and well-being of 399 men, half of whom were white collar/ professionals and the other half semi-skilled or unskilled workers. All had been unemployed for between 6 and 11 months and they found no difference on any of these sorts of variables, although the working class did report more financial worries, and troubles with boredom. Catalano and Dooley (1983) found a more complex pattern in that economic recession was found to be associated with a higher incidence of illness and injury for the middle classes, but not higher or lower class respondents; they argued that this resulted from higher rates of undesirable job and financial events amongst the middle class.

Local History and National Culture: Notions on Engineering Professionalism in America

On the face of it, we know more about the engineering profession than practically any other large topic in the history of American technology. There are eight historical monographs explicitly concerned with the subject, half a dozen relevant biographies, and at least as many books that deal with the profession indirectly.' So it might seem fanciful to argue that we lack important details or that major questions remain to be addressed.

On Teaching Art in America

The task of artists is not only to invent or to produce art but also to pass on their ideas and skills to the next generation. Sometimes a mediocre artist is an outstanding teacher; sometimes an outstanding one is not. It depends both on human and artistic capability and originality. The teacher of art has a twofold aim: to assure the continuation of a society's artistic heritage and to stimulate talented students to develop their creative potential. This double responsibility is especially difficult in our time, when artistic values change so rapidly. Thus, the position of today's art teacher is no longer as well defined as it was perhaps 100 years ago. I shall describe the special situation of today's artist-teacher engaged to teach fine arts as his major task, instead of instructing his craft and skill. My remarks will be based upon my American teaching experience and my work of several decades as sculptor and printmaker. Articles in Leonardo have treated attempts to improve the education of professional artists and amateurs but have not dealt with the problems of the artist as teacher. They present new methods [1, 2], the Bauhaus methodology [3] and strong criticisms of current methods [4, 5]. In these articles, the teacher is assumed to support new principles but the important problem to teach and at the same time to continue his own creative work is not discussed. A recent survey among professionals in America has shown, that artists and composers receive the lowest income directly from their work [6] and that very few can survive on this income. Thus, artists frequently resort to teaching in order to support themselves financially. The plight of the artist in Western society has been well described by Upton Sinclair:

Catholic Church Professionals

Like the church they serve, the full-time Roman Catholic professionals, including religious Sisters and Brothers as well as priests, are experiencing a period of crisis. Fewer people are entering this career, and many are leaving it. The main losses are in the specialized ministries in which the best- educated have been engaged. Meanwhile the traditional struc tures are being revised and replaced with experimental forms. The authoritarian system is giving way to collegiality at all levels, from relations with the laity to those with the hierarchy. A new focus on task-orientation has emphasized professionali zation which, in turn, has promoted self-fulfillment and relative autonomy. Seven out of ten of the church professionals in America are religious Sisters who are reorganizing their com munities around smaller task forces with much greater local self-direction than ever before. The traditional assumption that a celibate clergy is much more effective professionally than a married clergy is now being widely questioned. The religious orders, while maintaining celibacy, are re-evaluating the prac tical aspects of the vows of poverty and obedience. The in creasing "openness" of the church is reflected in the seminaries and training places of church personnel, who are now receiving a much broader and diversified professional preparation.