Realities Of Professional Practice Research Articles

Voluntary Attrition Among Traditional Baccalaureate Nursing Students: An Integrative Review.

The purpose of this review is to synthesize what is known about voluntary attrition from baccalaureate nursing education. Understanding the reasons behind elective, voluntary attrition from nursing programs can help maximize resources and graduate more nurses into the workforce. An integrative review of the literature was conducted using the search strategy outlined by Whittemore and Knafl. The validated Mixed-Methods Appraisal Tool was used to assess the quality of the studies found in the search. Ten studies met review criteria. Studies showed that academic and emotional underpreparedness, economic challenges, feelings of isolation, differences between perceptions of nursing and the realities of professional practice, and incongruence with learning objectives in clinical settings led to dissatisfaction. It is important to educate the public about nursing as a rigorous college major. The realities of nursing school, feelings of acceptance, and academic preparedness must be addressed by educators.

Group e-mentoring: Learnings from a pilot of assistive technology group mentoring in Australia

ABSTRACT Mentoring relationships are pathways to the sharing of tacit knowledge regarding the realities of professional practice, and good evidence supports the efficacy of mentorship among occupational therapists. Mentorship in specific practice areas can be difficult to recruit, and alternative mentoring models and platforms are emerging. This article presents a model of short-term group mentoring using a remote platform in the assistive technology (AT) practice arena. Conducted as a quality improvement activity within two professional associations, four volunteer mentees and five mentors engaged in three 75-minute Zoom-based mentoring sessions over three months. Content was collaboratively designed by a mentee/ mentor dyad from both professional associations. Pre and post-surveys were conducted and analysed to explore the experiences and outcomes for all participants. Positive outcomes for both mentees and mentors were reported, with a range of benefits identified in this small pilot study, Small group time-limited mentoring on topics of mutual interest are likely to be a time effective ‘starting point’ to partially meet mentorship needs. Mentoring remains an enduring and relevant pathway to support occupational therapists to do, to be and to become reflective and competent practitioners. In the face of pragmatic constraints, strategies such as short-term mentoring, group mentoring, and mentoring in a focal practice area, show great promise and may support further mentoring actions. Use of increasingly ubiquitous virtual/remote platforms, particularly in the twenty-first century and with the influence of pandemic-related distancing, are a promising enabler of connection.

The plight to dissent: professional integrity and ethical perception in the institutional care work of early childhood educators

ABSTRACTA Code of Ethics for Early Childhood Educators has been established in Denmark, accentuating the development of a professional ethos. However, the divergence between professional ethical ideals and the complex realities of professional practice can result in the phenomenon defined as moral distress. This article is a case study that discloses how moral distress can be processed through ethics education, based on results from an empirical study of early childhood educators’ experiences with moral dilemmas and ethical intervention in institutional care work. The author discusses professionals’ ‘plight to dissent’ when confronting unethical practice. The article concludes that educational programmes based on a supervision method, conceptualised as Ethical Circles (EC), can support early childhood educators to develop ethical perception and professional integrity. Professionals learn to reflect upon the complexities of early childhood education and care, and develop the competency to intervene in unethical practice, when needed, with the aim of putting children first.

Assessing how closely postgraduate translation programmes fit the reality of professional practice: a case study of the Spanish context

ABSTRACTThis paper presents the results of an empirical descriptive and contrastive study designed to assess how closely postgraduate translation programmes fit the reality of professional practice. Focusing on medical translation, the case study analyses the convergences and divergences between the competences that professional medical translators deploy in their work and highlight as being essential and those that students are expected to acquire in postgraduate courses in which medical translation is taught.Two empirical studies were conducted. The first study focused on a socio-professional perspective: 167 English-to-Spanish medical translators were surveyed to obtain information about their profiles and their opinions on the competences needed for medical translation. The second study focused on an academic perspective: the syllabuses of postgraduate courses in which medical translation is taught in Spain were analysed to determine the competences students are expected to acquire. The results of these two studies, which are analysed, compared and discussed, show that there are a significant number of convergences, but also some divergences, between the university courses and the professional practice. These raise interesting questions which need to be taken into account when designing, planning and improving existing and new postgraduate courses.

The influence of placements on adult nursing graduates' choice of first post.

This article presents findings from a study that sought to explore the extent to which clinical placements have an impact on nursing students' decisions regarding their first staff nurse post. Within the UK, nursing is facing a recruitment crisis with particular difficulty recruiting to areas such as primary care and care of older people. Transitioning into a new role is challenging in any occupation, but it is a particular problem in nursing where the realities of professional practice often differ from students' perception of the staff nurse role as shaped by their clinical placements. This pilot study aimed to explore the influence of practice placements on final-year adult nursing students' career decisions. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected in a single phase using a questionnaire distributed to nursing students on the final day of their course. A total of 35 completed questionnaires were returned (response rate 57%). Half of the participants entered the course with preconceived preferences for clinical specialisms. However, only five participants (14%) applied for first-destination posts in that specialism. The overall importance of placements in career choice increased across the three years of the programme. Although placements in all three years are important, the experiences in year 3 are pivotal, with 74% ranking these as 'significantly influential' in their decision-making process. Analysis of the data obtained from the free-text responses from the questionnaire suggested that working environment; the level of support provided by mentors and clinical staff; the opportunity to make a difference to patients' lives and the variety of placements, were key influences on nursing students' decision regarding their first staff nurse post. This study highlights the key role of practice placements in the career choices of student nurses, particularly during the final year of their programme. It shows that students are likely to apply for posts in the placement area they found to be most supportive and developmental.

The Midwifery First Year of Practice programme: Supporting New Zealand midwifery graduates in their transition to practice

A Corresponding Author: sally. pairman@op.ac.nz B Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand C New Zealand College of Midwives D University of Otago, New Zealand E Midwifery Council of New Zealand F Sky Blue House Limited, Wellington G Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology INTRoDuCTIoN The transition from student midwife to registered midwife can be challenging as new midwives come to grips with the realities of professional practice and autonomy. New Zealand’s maternity services are unique in that they are designed to be woman-centred and based on a primary health model that integrates seamlessly with secondary and tertiary services when required. Women choose a Lead Maternity Carer (LMC) to coordinate and provide their care throughout their childbirth experience, and they choose their place of birth. Midwives are chosen to be the LMC by 92% of women (Ministry of Health, 2015) and LMC midwives provide care to women across the Midwifery Scope of Practice (Midwifery Council of New Zealand, 2007) and on their own responsibility. Midwives can choose where and how they work with approximately half employed in maternity facilities (known as core midwives) and half working as LMCs within the community (known as self-employed midwives), providing continuity of care to a caseload of women (Midwifery Council of New Zealand, 2012). Midwives play a central role in maternity services and therefore, as a profession (through the New Zealand College of Midwives (NZCOM) and the Midwifery Council of New Zealand), have established a number of professional frameworks and initiatives to support midwives in their practice. Background: The Midwifery First Year of Practice programme (MFYP) is a fully governmentfunded programme aimed at supporting newly qualified midwives in their first year of practice. This formalised programme provides mentor support, professional continuing education and quality assessment and reflection. Aim: This research was designed to assess and explore the MFYP programme and identify which components New Zealand midwifery graduates considered important and supported them to develop confidence as a midwifery practitioner in their first year of practice. Method: A survey of graduate midwives who participated in the MFYP programme from 2007 to 2010 was undertaken. A survey tool was developed which was designed to explore each element of the programme. Likert scales were provided for the majority of questions with comment boxes also provided so that answers could be contextualised. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS 21 with descriptive statistics provided to demonstrate responses. Findings: Between the years 2007 and 2010, there were 415 new graduate midwives who participated in the MFYP programme, of which 180 responded to the survey (43.4% response rate). The demographics of the respondents were reflective of the total cohort of MFYP programme participants. In their first year of practice, respondents were almost evenly split between self-employed midwives in case loading practice (47.5%) and midwives employed by a maternity facility (45.5%). Support from the mentor and the financial support for education were considered important contributors to developing professional confidence for these new graduates. The majority of respondents reported feeling supported when attending women during labour and birth (92.2%), and at other times during clinical practice (93.9%). Main sources of support were midwives employed within the facility, midwifery practice partners, and midwife mentors from the MFYP programme. Conclusion: Each element of the programme was considered important by new graduates and this was regardless of their practice setting. The MFYP programme is flexible, meets the needs of New Zealand graduates and helps them to increase confidence in their first year of practice as a registered midwife.

What Stays (in Undergraduate Theatre Education)

What Stays (in Undergraduate Theatre Education) Russell Vandenbroucke (bio) I hope you won’t hiss, but I was trained in graduate school to be a theatre critic. Anatole France advised: “To be quite frank, the critic ought to say ‘Gentlemen, I am going to speak about myself apropos of Shakespeare, apropos of Racine, or of Pascal, or of Goethe.’” Speaking of myself apropos What Stays, I took exactly one theatre class as an undergraduate. It was in my final semester, and on the first day Bob Auletta announced that his goal was to discourage any of us from becoming playwrights. I acted for the first time that same semester as an attendant to Earl Hyman performing Othello for the 500th time. I had zero lines. I was slow to figure out what is now obvious: Plays are meant to be staged, not read. That belated insight led to Yale Drama School, and after it to twenty years in the land of LORT as a literary manager, dramaturg, director, and artistic director. I was past age 50 when I joined the University of Louisville as chair and attended my first faculty meeting ever. The “myself” I speak of apropos What Stays, teaches • at a public university; • within a college of liberal arts and sciences; • in a department that offers a BS, an MFA, and a Graduate Certificate in African American Theatre; we are home to one of the few African American theatre programs in the world; • and as director of a certificate program in Peace, Justice & Conflict Transformation that I cofounded. Theatre has never been my sole passion. What Stays, at least for my department, is home sweet home in liberal arts. I enthusiastically embrace liberal arts. I quibble with the language describing this panel as “in line with the realities of professional practice” if that implies that our primary responsibility is to prepare students for professional theatre. Most of them will not end up there and we mislead them if we suggest otherwise. What Stays is a core of learning that is wide-ranging and eclectic, like our students. Theatre is that rare human pursuit that can use every piece of knowledge and talent its practitioners possess. If you can juggle, play an instrument, speak foreign languages, walk on your hands, wield power tools safely, paint, write, sew, draft ground plans, sell tickets, raise money, inspire others, or make them laugh, you can apply it in the theatre. The more our students know and can do, the better prepared they are for life, and also for the theatre that might be part of it. What Stays is creating productions. In Marsha Norman’s Traveler in the Dark, one character counters another’s certitude: “That is not the truth. That is just a fact. The truth is what the facts mean.” Most of us spend weeks each year in productions seeking truth amid the clutter of facts. What Stays is the rehearsal room as a laboratory where we explore juicy interrogative pronouns that help us to separate truth from facts: Who am I talking to? What does this line mean? Why do I say it now? When do I move, if I move? Where do I stand, or sit, or skip, or sway? How do I communicate my intention or should I mask it? Why does any of this matter? [End Page 357] There are hundreds more questions to ask, then answer tentatively as best we can for this stage of rehearsal. (Do I reveal my technique as a director? I do.) And of course just outside the rehearsal room our collaborators are addressing the same questions in their studios, shops, and offices. In rehearsal rooms our students comprehend that communication includes proactive listening, not just inspired speaking; we are reminded why human beings have two ears and one mouth. And we figure out how to kiss the person we did not use to like. And curse the one we do. We evolve to trust everyone in the company, even those who may have seemed a little … different … around the table at the first read-through. Inside the cloisters of rehearsal rooms and shops we travel effortlessly across time and space...

Imagining alternative professional identities: reconfiguring professional boundaries between nursing students and medical students.

The transition of a medical student or a nursing student into a health care practitioner requires many changes. Among these is the development of an appropriate professional identity, which assists in the establishment of a sound base for professional practice and therefore should be a focus for health professions educators. There is evidence, however, that medical education and nursing education face challenges in guiding students' development of appropriate professional identities. In medicine, there is concern that medical education may contribute to the development of professional identities that alienate patients rather than identities that are patient centered. The nursing profession struggles with poor retention rates in the workforce, which have been attributed in part to discrepancies between the professional identities that students develop during nursing school and the realities of professional practice.In this Perspective, the authors explore the importance of and the pedagogical strategies used to facilitate professional identity formation for medical and nursing students. They argue that medical and nursing educators aim to instill in their students strong occupational identities which may perpetuate hierarchical disciplinary boundaries. They suggest that health professions educators should move beyond current disciplinary silos and create interprofessional education opportunities for medical students and nursing students to learn together to facilitate the development of the collaborative interprofessional identities necessary for the delivery of high-quality, patient-centered health care.

Anthropology, knowledge-flows and global health

Global health programmes are damaged by blockages in the upward flow of information from localities and regional centres about realities of professional practice and about patients' lives and conditions of treatment. Power differentials between local actors and national or international decision-makers present further obstacles to effective action. Anthropological research and action, in its most effective current forms, make important contributions to these issues. This research often continues over the long term, intensively. It can be multi-sited, studying actors at local, national and international levels simultaneously. It studies the relative knowledge and power of impoverished patients and global decision-makers, all within a single frame. By doing so, anthropological research is capable of providing new and important insights on the diverse meanings of patient decision-making, informed consent, non-compliance, public health reporting, the building of political coalitions for health and many other issues.

Academy and the Real World

Performing arts courses within the university sector retain a necessarily strong practical focus as they prepare graduates for work within a highly competitive environment. However, the reality for graduates is a world in which performance is only one component of the myriad activities required to build a sustainable career. This article reports findings from two studies which investigated work patterns, education and professional development of practising and intending musicians and dance artists. Data gathered using a questionnaire, focus groups and interviews reveal disparity between undergraduate curricula, the career expectations of students and the realities of professional practice. Alignment between the results of the music and dance studies suggests the potential for the collaborative delivery of both initial and lifelong education. The findings are discussed within the context of protean careers, and the article advocates the potential for practising artist academics to engage students in career development and the formation of their professional identities.

A gendered study of the working patterns of classical musicians: implications for practice

Despite an increase in participation at all levels of the music profession, women continue to experience fewer opportunities to forge careers in music and are less likely than men to apply for leadership positions. This article presents results from a study in which 152 instrumental musicians reflected upon their professional practice and career aspirations. The study examined differences in the professional practice of male and female musicians and found female musicians to be more likely to teach, and less likely to sustain performance positions because of the difficulties associated with managing family and other commitments whilst maintaining an uninterrupted career in music. It is proposed that educators have a crucial role to play in the development of curricula reflective of the realities of professional practice in a profession where interrupted careers can result in a loss of technical skills and in outdated curricular and methodological knowledge.

‘Consumer choice’ and public archaeology in and beyond the academy

Archaeology students at the University of Sydney answered a questionnaire about what first attracted them to archaeology and any changes in their opinions about the subject following university study. Primary and secondary education, media and visits to overseas archaeological sites were major factors in developing students’ interests in archaeology. More students were interested in overseas archaeology and in archaeological processes than Australian archaeology or archaeological knowledge. The main impact of university study was to increase students’ awareness of the scope of archaeology, its contemporary relevance, the contingency of archaeological knowledge and the complexity of method and practice. Results are compared with other data about public attitudes to archaeology. The study suggests that potential students, like other members of the public, are attracted to aspects of archaeology which don’t reflect realities of professional practice. Stressing archaeology’s contemporary relevance and skills training for employability seems unlikely to attract more students. Ways to increase public interest in Australian archaeology include actively embracing archaeology’s links with history and palaeontology, more focus on narratives of discovery in public education, and increasing the scope of archaeology taught in schools and shown on television.

Interview Talk as Professional Practice

Conventional understandings of interviews with teachers or other educational participants have treated interviewing activity as data collection, and interview responses as reports on the realities of professional practice. This paper proposes that interview data can be analysed differently when interviews are studied as instances of 'language in education' themselves. The interview can be seen as a site of professional practice, not just reflection on practice, in that such interviews contain courses of questioning and methods of accounting that are reflexively part of the generation of educational knowledge. Working from transcripts of two interviews with a beginning secondary school teacher, we focus on the ways in which language is used interactively to recast professional knowledge and discourse.

The Consultation Circle

ABSTRACT The Consultation Circle, an effective technique for developing peer consultation skills in field seminar, offers a structured process for giving and receiving feedback. This technique empowers students, who because of personality style, perceived gender constraints, or cultural norms, may be reticent to participate. Because peer consultation is rapidly becoming a feature of social service agency infrastructure for practice review and professional development, incorporating the Consultation Circle in field seminar enhances students' preparation for the realities of professional practice. Although use of the technique in field seminars is described in the paper, it has been used successfully in multi-disciplinary, multicultural agency settings.

Confronting the “Threat” of Private Practice

Although an increasing number of social workers are engaging in private clinical practice and a majority of entering MSW students plan to do so, content on private practice is generally not included in MSW curricula. This article reports on a 1992-93 survey of faculty and student attitudes concerning various aspects of studying private practice in MSW programs. It compares the views of the two groups, assesses the implications for social work education, and encourages creative approaches to integrating the realities of professional practice with the traditional values and mission of social work.

From Irreverence to Irrelevance?: The Growing Disjuncture of Family Therapy Theories from Social Realities

The author believes that family therapy theory and practice has become further and further removed from the changing economic and political realities of professional practice as well as to the worsening everyday social realities of the many millions of potential clients that the field purports to serve. New theoretical developments, while offering new perspectives through which therapists may view their work, remain decidedly apolitical, decontextualizing therapists and therapy from the larger social and cultural milieus. An open examination and thorough discussion of these changing realities is proposed as a partial antidote to the increasing irrelevance of the field.

Commentary on a Moral Evaluation of Sales Practices

David M. Holley has provided an interesting and thoughtful appraisal of personal selling from a societal viewpoint. It is obvious that A Moral Evaluation of Sales Practices focuses on concern for the welfare of the buyer in the context of personal selling. The purpose of this commentary is to (1) comment on the Holley framework for evaluating the morality of various sales practices and (2) comment on the realities of professional practice in personal selling. Holley provides an appraisal of the market system and basically agrees that there is justification for this system in meeting people's needs and desires for products. His basic assumption is that voluntary exchange occurs only if (1) buyers and sellers understand what they are giving up and receiving (2) that coercion or severely restricted alternatives do not impinge on the ability to choose and (3) buyers and sellers are able to make a rational judgement about benefits and costs. The idea of voluntary exchange is very idealistic and exists only as a desired state of the world. Holley assumes that knowledge, non-compulsion and rationality conditions must exist to have a voluntary exchange. Most marketers and philosophers would like to achieve these conditions but unfortunately, the inadequacy of communication systems and the lack of knowledge and understanding on both the part of buyers and sellers make this model impossible to attain. Stating it another way, Holley wants to eliminate ignorance, compulsion and irrationality to achieve an ideal exchange. He does acknowledge that in actual practice there is virtually always some divergence from the ideal because of imperfect information, irrational influences or external constraints. Even when conditions are not