Focusing on Continuous Professional Development for Health Professionals

The context in which health professionals practice is constantly evolving. The entry of new technologies in medicine has put more than one specialist to the test. It is worth noting that these technologies are rapidly updated, generating new solutions every year. While this contributes to offering quality programs for the training of new professionals, how can a professional even aspire to keep up to date with all these developments? This chapter provides some proposals and reflections to develop professional development goals for health professionals based on a continuous professional development mindset.

Exposing Learners to Practice

Clinical education is the center of professional preparation in healthcare fields, linking theoretical knowledge with clinical practice in the minds and behaviors of student clinicians. Clinical education, supervised by educators who are licensed professionals, is essential in the process of creating new professionals. What does a professional training program do about clinical education when the world shuts down? This chapter addresses the context of a private, not for profit university's response to the COVID-19 public healthcare crisis in spring of 2019 and the process by which a graduate training program in speech-language pathology re-organized, and re-visioned, clinical education in that context. The process allowed an upper cohort of students to graduate successfully and on time, engaged a lower cohort of brand-new clinicians in meaningful clinical learning, and taught the program new lessons about what is important in designing clinical education.

Contratación pública socialmente responsable

We are on the verge of a generational changeover in public GLAM services (libraries, archives, museums, documentation centers), and predictions based on current contracting models indicate an increase in the amount of outsourcing. It is foreseeable that a cohort of new professionals will join the various administrations without being public employees, often carrying out permanent tasks. This note focuses on the problems of public procurement through outsourcing, on the opportunity for public administrations to promote sustainability, equity, and innovation if they use their great “purchasing power” with social responsibility criteria, and on the role of professional associations in the regulation of new labor ecosystems. Resumen Estamos a las puertas de un relevo generacional en los servicios GLAM públicos (bibliotecas, archivos, museos, centros de documentación) y el panorama que nos adelantan los actuales modelos de contratación auguran un aumento del número de externalizaciones. Es previsible la incorporación de una cohorte de nuevos profesionales que trabajarán para las diferentes administraciones sin ser empleados públicos y realizando, en muchas ocasiones, labores de carácter permanente. Esta nota se va a centrar en la problemática de la contratación pública vía externalización, en la oportunidad que, para promover la sostenibilidad, la equidad y la innovación, tienen las administraciones públicas si utilizan su gran “poder de compra” con criterios de responsabilidad social y en el papel de las asociaciones profesionales en la regulación de nuevos ecosistemas laborales.

A PERCEPÇÃO DOS BOLSISTAS DO PROJETO DE EXTENSÃO “A INSERÇÃO DA UNIVERSIDADE NO FUTEBOL” A RESPEITO DA RELAÇÃO TEORIA E PRÁTICA

In Physical Education, there is a discussion about the theory and practice dichotomy, and how much one provides support to the other to obtain legitimacy. This leads to thinking about the training of the new professionals in the area. In the training environment, there are theoretical subjects, which seem to be far from a reality outside of the university. This causes a misinterpretation of the real situation of education. The aim of this study was to verify the perception of the scholarship students about the extension Project “The insertion of the university in soccer” regarding the dimension theory and practice in the Physical Education training. It was conducted qualitative research, with a qualitative approach, and composed of five scholarship students from the extension project. The data were collected through an open questionnaire, applied to the students, and analyzed with the theoretical framework searching for the results. The data analysis indicates the tension maintenance between theory and practice, which the first one concentrates on the setting of a conceptual framework far from the practice conceived as a limited “experience of yourself” during an educational activity. However, the extensionists practices allowed to widen the knowledge of the professional expertise and, paradoxically, the application of the theories learned in the academic environment.

Self-Care and Self-Advocacy

New professionals in the school social work field must be able to identify the symptoms of stress related to their work with students and families. This chapter explores the art and necessity of self-care for the school social workers and provides basic information about workplace stress, tools for quality-of-life assessment, and strategies to build immediate and long-term self-care routines. The goal is to enable school social workers to accurately assess their own quality of life and develop strong self-care practices in order to increase their engagement. Basic strategies are offered to increase compassion satisfaction, self-advocacy, and engagement within the helping profession.

Addressing Acute Stress among Professionals Caring for COVID-19 Patients: Lessons Learned during the First Outbreak in Spain (March–April 2020)

Objectives: To describe lessons learned during the first COVID-19 outbreak in developing urgent interventions to strengthen healthcare workers’ capacity to cope with acute stress caused by health care pressure, concern about becoming infected, despair of witnessing patients’ suffering, and critical decision-making requirements of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic during the first outbreak in Spain. Methods: A task force integrated by healthcare professionals and academics was activated following the first observations of acute stress reactions starting to compromise the professionals’ capacity for caring COVID-19 patients. Literature review and qualitative approach (consensus techniques) were applied. The target population included health professionals in primary care, hospitals, emergencies, and nursing homes. Interventions designed for addressing acute stress were agreed and disseminated. Findings: There are similarities in stressors to previous outbreaks, and the solutions devised then may work now. A set of issues, interventions to cope with, and their levels of evidence were defined. Issues and interventions were classified as: adequate communication initiative to strengthen work morale (avoiding information blackouts, uniformity of criteria, access to updated information, mentoring new professionals); resilience and recovery from physical and mental fatigue (briefings, protecting the family, regulated recovery time during the day, psychological first aid, humanizing care); reinforce leadership of intermediate commands (informative leadership, transparency, realism, and positive messages, the current state of emergency has not allowed for an empirical analysis of the effectiveness of proposed interventions. Sharing information to gauge expectations, listening to what professionals need, feeling protected from threats, organizational flexibility, encouraging teamwork, and leadership that promotes psychological safety have led to more positive responses. Attention to the needs of individuals must be combined with caring for the teams responsible for patient care. Conclusions: Although the COVID-19 pandemic has a more devastating effect than other recent outbreaks, there are common stressors and lessons learned in all of them that we must draw on to increase our capacity to respond to future healthcare crises.

Leadership: Tertiary Libraries and the New Library Professional

<p>Research Problem: The library workforce is rapidly aging and many library leaders will be lost as they retire. This is exacerbated in tertiary libraries, which traditionally attract an older workforce. Libraries face constant change that requires leaders to negotiate. Doubts have been expressed about new library professionals’ willingness to take on leadership roles. To understand how problematic this situation is in New Zealand’s tertiary sector, this research examined the attitude of new library professionals’ toward leadership. Methodology: The research used a survey method incorporating quantitative and qualitative questions. For the purpose of this research a new library professional is defined as someone who began studying for a library qualification within the last five years, or who has completed a library qualification within the last five years. Results: 32 eligible participants took part. The results show a desire for access to mentoring and while the attitudes toward leadership are dependent on confidence, experience and involvement in development opportunities, most participants expressed a positive attitude to taking on a leadership role either now or in the future. Implications: Access to leadership development opportunities builds knowledge and confidence, and attitudes are negatively impacted without this. Mentoring is a key development opportunity that the majority of new librarians currently lack. These findings positively reinforce the leadership and mentoring opportunities currently offered by the LIANZA, although regular reminders to new professionals of these opportunities would help. The findings suggest the proposed changes to the MIS library curriculum of incorporating a practicum for all students is an additional development opportunity that will add to new professionals’ experience.</p>

Leadership: Tertiary Libraries and the New Library Professional

<p>Research Problem: The library workforce is rapidly aging and many library leaders will be lost as they retire. This is exacerbated in tertiary libraries, which traditionally attract an older workforce. Libraries face constant change that requires leaders to negotiate. Doubts have been expressed about new library professionals’ willingness to take on leadership roles. To understand how problematic this situation is in New Zealand’s tertiary sector, this research examined the attitude of new library professionals’ toward leadership. Methodology: The research used a survey method incorporating quantitative and qualitative questions. For the purpose of this research a new library professional is defined as someone who began studying for a library qualification within the last five years, or who has completed a library qualification within the last five years. Results: 32 eligible participants took part. The results show a desire for access to mentoring and while the attitudes toward leadership are dependent on confidence, experience and involvement in development opportunities, most participants expressed a positive attitude to taking on a leadership role either now or in the future. Implications: Access to leadership development opportunities builds knowledge and confidence, and attitudes are negatively impacted without this. Mentoring is a key development opportunity that the majority of new librarians currently lack. These findings positively reinforce the leadership and mentoring opportunities currently offered by the LIANZA, although regular reminders to new professionals of these opportunities would help. The findings suggest the proposed changes to the MIS library curriculum of incorporating a practicum for all students is an additional development opportunity that will add to new professionals’ experience.</p>