Specialisation in allied health

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-172
Author(s):  
Susan Nancarrow ◽  
Alan Borthwick
Keyword(s):  
Allied Health ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Health Professions ◽  
The State ◽  
Nursing Profession ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
Allied Health Professions ◽  
Professional Recognition ◽  
Podiatric Surgery

This chapter explores the development of podiatric surgery as a state-registered allied health specialisation, and the negotiations with the state and the medical profession that shaped it. Few allied health professions have successfully achieved recognised specialisms. The medical profession particularly and the nursing profession to a lesser extent have both been successful in achieving internal divisions of labour through state-recognised specialisations. While many allied health professions recognise 'special interests' and endorse specialist areas of practice, few of these specialisms are formally recognised by the state or attract a higher level of professional recognition through higher roles and reimbursement. The two notable exceptions to this are the practice of psychology and podiatry.

The Division of Laborers: Allied Health Professions

1973 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol A. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Health Services ◽  
Allied Health ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Health Professions ◽  
Education And Training ◽  
Health Occupations ◽  
Allied Health Professions ◽  
Professional Societies ◽  
And Training ◽  
Radiology And Pathology

As health services have become hospital-centered, many specialized health occupations have been created. The author maintains that these allied health occupations conflict with the medical profession for occupational territory, and that the development of these subordinate occupations has been controlled by the medical profession to its own benefit. This control is achieved through domination of professional societies, education and training, industrial rules and regulations, and government licenses. Detailed examples of the process of control are provided from the fields of radiology and pathology.

Emerging allied health professions

2021 ◽  
pp. 107-130
Author(s):  
Susan Nancarrow ◽  
Alan Borthwick
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Allied Health ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Health Professions ◽  
State Funding ◽  
Professional Standards ◽  
Occupational Groups ◽  
Allied Health Professions ◽  
Professional Project

This chapter draws on the examples of the professionalisation of operating department practitioners (ODPs), pedorthists and developmental educators (DEs) to examine the pathway to professionalism in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. These examples illustrate potential pathways that can be adopted for successful professionalisation by other occupational groups. Newly emerging allied health professions at the end of the 20th century and start of the 21st century have been able to access a far more straightforward pathway to achieve their professional project. Newly emerging occupations that meet a series of minimum professional standards face limited opposition from the state and minimal, if any, intervention from the medical profession. Their primary challenge is achieving professional closure and convincing large (mostly state) funding bodies to recognise and purchase their services, effectively achieving professional closure.

The established allied health professions

2021 ◽  
pp. 83-106
Author(s):  
Susan Nancarrow ◽  
Alan Borthwick
Keyword(s):  
Allied Health ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Health Professions ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Business Success ◽  
Professional Boundaries ◽  
Allied Health Professions ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Mainstream Healthcare ◽  
The Right

This chapter explores in detail using the examples of optometry and radiography the early development of the well-established and more mature allied health professions who have had to negotiate their professional boundaries with the state and the medical profession. In many ways, it is these early disputes and negotiations that are responsible for shaping the modern health workforce and the allied health division of labour. Optometry and radiology constitute two clear examples of professions that may be regarded as established within contemporary mainstream healthcare. One has a long pre-modern history, with a degree of autonomy built on its claim to a unique knowledge base that is independent of medicine and a track record of retail business success; the other emerged firmly rooted in hospital practice comprising technicians competing with medicine within a medical sphere of practice. Optometry, historically male-dominated, was established prior to the advent of full medical hegemony and power; radiography, mainly female, arose within it. Yet, both continue to operate within limits to a scope of practice defined by the presence of two major medical specialities with which they closely interface: ophthalmology and radiology. Both groups have a clearly limited and subordinate role in the provision of healthcare within their own spheres, and both had to concede the right to make diagnoses within their fields of expertise. It is the latter that has so clearly influenced the limitations set on the prescribing of medicines for both groups, even in the current policy climate of workforce redesign and role flexibility.

The Allied Health Professions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Nancarrow ◽  
Alan Borthwick
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Allied Health ◽  
Health Professions ◽  
Health Occupations ◽  
Allied Health Professions ◽  
Professional Goals ◽  
Sociology Of Health

Drawing on case studies from optometrists, physiotherapists, pedorthists and allied health assistants, this book offers an innovative comparison of allied health occupations in Australia and Britain. Adopting a theory of the sociology of health professions, it explores how the allied health professions can achieve their professional goals.

The interface of health support workers with the allied health professions

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-124
Author(s):  
Susan Nancarrow
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Health Workforce ◽  
Allied Health ◽  
Health Professions ◽  
Allied Health Professions ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Health Support ◽  
Professional Project

The chapter begins by describing the allied health workforce, before exploring from a neo-Weberian perspective the development of the support workforce associated with the allied health professions with a focus on the United Kingdom and Australia – not least by considering the reasons for introducing a support workforce, the contexts in which it is used, the negotiation of its boundaries, and the challenges and opportunities for allied health professions and its support workforce. In particular, this chapter claims that the heterogeneous allied health support workforce has evolved through two models, with different types of workers. The first is the profession-led model, which supports the neo-Weberian idea of the professional project, in which allied health professions developed support roles to expand and maintain their market monopoly and autonomy in niche areas. The second is the managerial model, which instead privileges the ‘patient-centred’ goals of increasing role flexibility by recognising and rewarding individuals’ skills and competencies and working across traditional professional and organisational boundaries. The chapter finally outlines some of the key challenges to allied health support workforce going forward.

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