Creative Solutions for Today's Students

This chapter will explore the connection between diversifying health profession student demographics, diversifying challenges these students face, and the new obstacles presented by shifting curriculum delivery to remote and hybrid learning during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The chapter will explore challenges that may seem especially difficult to address in a remote learning model: the desire to develop community among fellow learners when in a hybrid or fully remote program and when learners are from varied backgrounds; cultivating in students coping mechanisms to manage anxiety from the economic uncertainty of today's world, balancing commitments between educational pursuits and other responsibilities (e.g., child or parent care, etc.); and facilitating learning for students with physical and/or mental disabilities or chronic medical conditions.

Supporting Diversity and Inclusiveness Amid a Changing Academic Landscape

Prior to the pandemic, two-thirds of universities and colleges administered courses in the traditional face-to-face setting. After the abrupt change due to the pandemic, educators submerged themselves in virtual pedagogy and forged ahead in preparing the future workforce. An area that may have been overlooked was ensuring the learning environment remained diverse, equitable, and inclusive for all learners. Vital to students matriculating through programs and entering the healthcare workforce is recognizing and understanding student learning styles and having an ecological glimpse of circumstances that may affect their learning. Employing the intersectionality framework to explore inequities exacerbated by students' identities is a starting point. Implementing strategic priorities and DEI practices to decrease the equity gap that exists in the healthcare system and higher education institutions is essential. Health profession educators play a unique role in serving as change agents for future healthcare professionals who have a direct impact on health outcomes.

Communication on All Sides

People seek to solve problems, either through cognitive or emotional means or both, including behavioral ones. Health professionals have a specific mission to care and heal and they do so through their skills, behaviors, knowledge, and beliefs. To fulfill this mission of promoting satisfactory results in health relationships, the therapeutic relationship can be approached in several ways and based on different models. If there are trends of great centralization of consultation in the health profession, an effort has been made for patient-centered decision. The path of this relationship in health allows for a mutually beneficial interaction with commitment and better health results. Without wishing to be exhaustive and knowing that many models are left out, the authors explore the evolution of models applied to health throughout history.

Physiotherapy Otherwise

Most people are so familiar with the idea of professions that it would be hard to imagine life without them. And yet, the professions we know today are a relatively recent invention. Although physiotherapy may not have achieved the extraordinary levels of privilege and prestige enjoyed by medicine, it still has three quarters of a million respected and valued practitioners worldwide, and is, in many ways, the model of a modern health profession. But physiotherapy is also facing unprecedented challenges, and calls for reform are now widespread. Global healthcare is on the cusp of a cultural, economic, social, and technological revolution, and entering a new post-professional era. Physiotherapy will be affected in profoundly important ways in the coming years, but, to date, we have precious few tools to help us navigate the change. The story of how physiotherapy arrived here was the subject of The End of Physiotherapy (Routledge, 2017). Physiotherapy Otherwise builds on this work, bringing a century of social theory to our understanding of the profession. The book explores what the professions are, what they do in society, what's good about them, and what's bad, and applies all of this to physiotherapy today. By taking the reader from our earliest sociological understandings of the professions to the cutting edge of contemporary thinking, Physiotherapy Otherwise is both a primer on sociology and a critical course in a new ways to understand our profession and our practice.

Effectiveness of Body Mechanics Training (BMT) on the Management of Low Back Pain, Functional Disability and Physical Fatigue among Women Working in Health Profession: A Study Protocol

Background: The most prevalent musculoskeletal problem among healthcare workers is low back pain (LBP). It's a type of pain between the costal margins and the inferior gluteal folds, and a painful restriction of movement frequently accompanies it. In high-risk health care professionals such as nurses, the prevalence of LBP is higher (64.07%). Clients with chronic LBP had a high level of functional impairment and weariness. Objectives: 1.To evaluate the effectiveness of Body Mechanics Training (BMT) on managing low back pain, functional disability, and physical fatigue among women working in the health profession on the 7th day and at the first, third, and sixth-month interval. 2.To identify the inter-relationship between LBP, functional disability, and physical fatigue. Study Design: It is a two-arm trial, interventional hospital-based Study. Place and Duration of The Study: This Study will be conducted in selected hospitals of Wardha district, Maharashtra, India. The duration of the Study will be six months. Methodology: The participants will be 330 women in the nursing profession with nonspecific chronic LBP aged 21 to 50. With purposive sampling technique, participants will be allocated to 1 of 2 treatment groups: 1) Experimental Group will receive BMT including McKenzie and Yoga exercises, through a licensed physiotherapist and certified yoga trainer. 2) Control Group will receive written instructions regarding body mechanics in a booklet form and follow exercises at home. The experimental group will receive 24 sessions of 60 minutes (6 sessions per week over the first four weeks or a month) and then a supervised session once a week for the next five months. The outcome will be obtained during intervention on the 7th day and after completion at 1, 3, and 6 months. After therapy, the primary outcome will be pain intensity as determined by the Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS). The secondary outcome, i.e. pain intensity, functional disability (measured with Modified Oswestry LBP Disability Questionnaire), and physical fatigue (measured with Chalder Fatigue Scale), will be measured after treatment. Expected Results: LBP, functional disability, and physical fatigue will be reduced. Limitations: Only Nursing personnel will be included in this Study. Conclusion: This Study's results will contribute to developing BM Training Program for Nursing personnel to manage work-related nonspecific LBP.

Quality Health Professions Programs: Path to Program of Merit Designation

In 2015, the AGHE Program of Merit was expanded to implement a voluntary evaluation process for health professions programs that integrate gerontology/geriatrics competencies within their curriculum. These competencies augment students’ competence and confidence in the field of aging, preparing them to work with older adults and their care partners. All health professions and medical education programs are eligible to apply for the Program of Merit designation. This international process of evaluation: (1) Verifies program credibility and quality; (2) Informs campus administrators of global guidelines, expectations, and practice in aging for their health professions programs; (3) Assures quality graduates from POM designated programs; and (4) Clarifies for employers the knowledge and skills imparted to student graduates of POM designated health professions programs. Additionally, graduates from POM programs receive a certificate from AGHE stating the health profession program is a designated AGHE Program of Merit.

Health professionalism and health profession education in the 21st century

The dramatic, rapid and uncertain changes from the 20th to the 21st century are called global megatrends. Such trends are the emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, an aging society, environmental hazards, behavioural risks, and more complicated lifestyles of humans in the digital age with advanced information technology (IT) that impact much on epidemiological transitions, health security and healthcare. Health professionals are the key persons for dealing with these challenging healthcare trends. The next generation of health professionals should be equipped with high professionalism especially for the components of humanism that artificial intelligence (AI) cannot replicate. Moreover, interprofessional collaborative teamwork among health professionals is a required skill for working in dynamic transitions such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Interprofessional education (IPE) is one of the essential strategies for enhancing teamwork skills in learners. Six previously reported trends in health profession education for the 21st century are summarized, including interprofessional education, longitudinal integrated clinical education, understanding partnerships and social determination of health in patients, life-long learning, competency-based skills changeable over time, and AI and IT integrated in education. The connection among megatrends, trends in healthcare, health professionalism and health professional’s education will be important issues in academia for both health educators and health professionals.