[Continuing education. A tool for personal and professional development].
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Denmark↗
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Results for “continuing professional development”
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No to mandatory continuing medical education, yes to mandatory practice auditing and professional educational development.
The issue of mandatory continuing medical education (CME) is controversial. Traditional measures mandate only attendance, not learning, and have no measurable performance end points. There is no evidence that current approaches to CME, mandatory or voluntary, produce sustainable changes in physician practices or application of current knowledge. Ongoing educational development is an important value in a professional, and there is an ethical obligation to keep up to date. Mandating self-audit of the effect of individual learning on physician's practices and evaluation by the licensing authority are effective ways of ensuring the public are protected. The author recommends the use of a personal portfolio to document sources of learning, the effect of learning and the auditing of their applications on practice patterns and patient outcomes. A series of principles are proposed to govern its application.
Canada↗
Professional development in midwifery: findings from a longitudinal study of midwives' careers.
Although much importance is attached to continuing professional education for nurses, midwives and health visitors, there is a paucity of empirical studies on the subject. This article reviews research in continuing education for midwives and adds to the body of literature by reporting on findings on continuing education obtained in the course of a longitudinal study of midwives' careers. The original impetus for the study was concern about attrition from the profession; the method chosen to examine the problem was a longitudinal study in which two large cohorts of midwives were followed-up by means of questionnaires sent to them at regular intervals from qualification onwards. Information has been obtained on the relationship to retention of career intentions, careers followed and many aspects of life as a midwife. Those aspects relating to continuing professional education and development include obtaining post-basic qualifications, opportunities for in-service education, professional development during breaks for child care, support and feedback from senior colleagues and views on the importance of continuing education and support in relation to retention.
Career Mobility↗
Designing health care risk management on-line:meeting regulators' concerns for fixed-hour curriculum.
This paper describes the experience of creating a continuing professional education on-line risk management program that is designed to meet Florida's educational requirements for licensure as a risk manager in health-care settings and details the challenges faced when the in-class didactic program of 15 eight-hour sessions is reformatted as an on-line program. Structuring instructor/learner interactivity remains a challenge, especially if the program allows learner control and is a key feature in marketing the program. The article presents the dilemmas for state regulators as they work to determine if the on-line program meets legislative intent and statutory requirements because the learning platform does not have a clock function that accumulates time for each learner. While some details reflect the uniqueness of the 120-hour educational requirements for risk managers in Florida, the experience of the authors provides insight into the development of continuing professional education distance learning programs that are multidisciplinary and move primarily from a time-based format into a curriculum that uses time as only one dimension of the evaluation of learning.
Computer-Assisted Instruction↗
Swedish Registered Nurses' incentives to use nursing diagnoses in clinical practice.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to describe Registered Nurses' incentives to use nursing diagnoses in clinical practice. BACKGROUND: The use of nursing diagnoses is scarce in Swedish patient records. However, there are hospital wards were all nurses formulate and use nursing diagnoses in their daily work. This leads to the question of what motivates these nurses who do use nursing diagnoses in clinical practice. DESIGN: A qualitative descriptive design. METHODS: A purposeful sampling of 12 Registered Nurses was used. Qualitative interviews to collect data and a content analysis were performed. RESULTS: Five categories were identified: identification of the patient as an individual and as a whole, a working tool for facilitating nursing care, increasing awareness within nursing, support from the management and influence on the professional role. The principle findings of this study were: (i) that the Registered Nurses perceived that nursing diagnoses clarified the patient's individual needs and thereby enabled them to decide on more specific nursing interventions, (ii) that nursing diagnoses were found to facilitate communication between colleagues concerning patient care and thus promoted continuity of care and saved time and (iii) that nursing diagnoses were perceived to increase the Registered Nurses' reflective thinking leading to a continuous development of professional knowledge. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings suggest that the incentives to use nursing diagnoses originate from effects generated from performing a deeper analysis of the patient's nursing needs. Further research is needed to test and validate the usability and consequences of using nursing diagnoses in clinical practice. Motivating factors found in this study may be valuable to Registered Nurses for the use and development of nursing diagnoses in clinical care. Moreover, these factors may be of relevance in other countries that are in a similar situation as Sweden concerning application of nursing diagnoses.
Attitude of Health Personnel↗
Standards for continuing competence.
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Education, Continuing↗
The role of policy in community pharmacies' response to injection-drug use: results of a nationwide Canadian survey.
The response rate to this survey reflects the salience of the topic and the professional concern about and interest in issues presented by HIV. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has presented pharmacists with one of the greatest challenges to their professional training, ethics, and practice. It further expedites a current re-examination that is occurring among community pharmacies concerning their roles in community health practices. In response to HIV there have been dramatic and unprecedented changes in pharmacy policy and practices. Clearly, some community pharmacies have led the way and influenced policy and practices. In view of the recent introduction of many of these policies and practices, it is likely that change will continue. Survey respondents were, in general, very comfortable with an expanded role involving counseling, health promotion, and disease prevention, consistent with a broader role for community pharmacies in general that has been recently advocated. Community pharmacies serve all areas of the country, in communities large and small; many are open seven days a week, and some provide extended hours of service. Community pharmacies may provide an important complement to community outreach programs as a source of clean needles and syringes for IDUs in most communities, and as an alternative service in some communities where more elaborate programs are not feasible. Safer needle use, as part of a health-promotion approach, is divergent from conventional practice. While major changes have occurred, it appears that there has been some polarization of attitudes and response. The explanation for this is not simple, and further analysis is required to determine the full impact from several ethical perspectives that include professional, business, and public health viewpoints. We have highlighted the role that policy has in moving toward preventive and harm-reduction approaches. From a policy perspective, we have found that support from the federal government, regulatory bodies, and professional associations may be an important catalyst to pharmacists' participation in programs. Further, it does not appear to be possible to implement such policies without professional development and continuing education, and collaboration with the community. Based on data on knowledge and educational need, we believe that our study population's lowest levels of information were in such areas as the role of methadone in HIV prevention and the availability of needle-exchange programs. As with other health-promotion campaigns, additional skills training may be important. Movement forward with expanded preventive and harm-reduction strategies by pharmacies will require careful planning. It is anticipated that change in this area will be incremental in nature, and that it is necessary to introduce programs and services into community pharmacies gradually. Successful implementation will require extensive community development and collaboration with other health professionals, public health officials, police, groups who represent IDUs, and persons living with HIV/AIDS. Careful monitoring and evaluation of these programs will be necessary to enhance their effectiveness.
Canada↗
Returning to school: an alternative to 'traditional' education.
To remain current within the changing health care system, health care professionals must continuously develop and sharpen skills to provide effective care. Advancement within the profession may be dependent upon the attainment of additional degrees. "Traditional" education methodologies do not fit easily into busy schedules. Many nurses are finding that distance learning programs provide a practical alternative for degree completion. This article presents a basic introduction to distance learning. Specific strategies and resources for finding appropriate distance learning programs are discussed in detail.
Accreditation↗
Nursing home nurses need support to update skills.
More than 10% registered nurses now work within the nursing home sector. This study investigated the level of employer support received by 41 nursing home nurses attending a seminar and the difficulties they faced in continuing their professional development. Nurses in the study stated that patient dependency and workload had increased and their training needs had risen. Almost two-thirds of the nurses attending received no employer support; the same proportion found it difficult to access professional education that was related to the needs of nurses working within nurse-led units. Almost two-thirds anticipated difficulties in meeting PREP requirements. The report discusses the implications of those difficulties on recruitment, retention and quality of care and concludes by recommending further research; government action to encourage links between universities and nursing homes and funding of PREP.
Aged↗
Supporting students' learning and professional development through the process of continuous assessment and mentorship.
This paper is based on the results of two studies carried out by the writer, over a period of 6 years (1991-1996), aimed to establish what happens in nursing practice in relation to assessing clinical competence of nursing students and the support they receive during their Nurse Education Programme. Study number one (1991-1995) was based upon the experiences and perceptions of 155 skilled practitioners and 300 students from three Colleges of Nursing and 45 interested practitioners, who volunteered to join the research at a later date because they were experienced assessors and mentors. Many themes and categories emerged. One in particular was that of the role of the practitioner who has been charged with the responsibility of assessing student performance on practice placement. Initial interviews with 155 practitioners of varying experience as assessors were used to design a questionnaire containing both context free and context specific items. Subsequent follow-up interviews were undertaken with both students and practitioners and non-participant observation of practitioners working with students were carried out. The majority of students accepted the dual role and at times, even the triple role of assessors, mentors and/or supervisors forced upon practitioners, provided that the practitioners assessing them were well prepared and 'trained' as assessors, were perceived to be 'fair', 'competent', 'skilful' and 'knowledgeable' (Neary 1997a). Study two (1992-1994) aimed to establish the process and outcomes of practitioner-teachers and mentorship in Wales, and was based on the data from a much extended period of semi-structured interviews with policy makers, managers, teachers and nurse practitioners (n = 360, 330 analyzed in detail) spanning 10 months, which gave an invaluable pictures of ongoing changes in the placement areas and the basis from which to construct a widely administered questionnaire (n = 1332) dealing with context-free and context-specific factors underpinning the definition of the mentor role, selection and relationship with students. Similar logic lay behind the use of reflective semi-structured diaries which asked 138 students and 133 practitioners to keep during practice placements. This study showed the practitioners readily adopted the term 'mentor' to describe their role in their relationship with students in clinical practice. How they were selected for this role proved to be more complex (Davies et al. 1994). for the purpose of this paper the data from both studies is merged to give a stronger and more focused picture of how both students and practitioners perceived their roles in the assessment and support systems which were in action at the time of the studies.
Attitude of Health Personnel↗
Continuing medical education: a new vision of the professional development of physicians.
The authors describe their vision of what continuing medical education (CME) should become in the changing health care environment. They first discuss six types of literature (e.g., concerning learning and adult development principles, problem-based/practice-based learning, and other topics) that contribute to ways of thinking about and understanding CME. They then state their view that the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has made a commitment to helping CME be more effective in the professional development of physicians. In presenting their new vision of CME, the authors describe their interpretation of the nature and values of CME (e.g., optimal CME is highly self-directed; the selection and design of the most relevant CME is based on data from each physician's responsibilities and performance; etc.). They then present seven action steps, suggestions to begin them, and the institutions and organizations they believe should carry them out, and recommend that the AAMC play a major role in supporting activities to carry out these steps. (For example, one action step is the generation and application of new knowledge about how and why physicians learn, select best practices, and change their behaviors). Six core competencies for CME educators are defined. The authors conclude by stating that collaboration among the appropriate academic groups, professional associations, and health care institutions, with leadership from the AAMC, is essential to create the best learning systems for the professional development of physicians.
Education, Medical, Continuing↗
The Coronary Drug Project. Role of the National Institutes of Health.
A clinical trials staff within an Institute is essential for adequate participation in and monitoring of any large cooperative clinical trial supported by that Institute. At minimum such a staff should consist of a medical scientist with professional interests and experience in clinical trials methodology; a biometrician with direct experience and interest in the design, large-scale data collection, data analysis, and quality control needs of such trials; a contract specialist; and additional consultants in the technical areas related to the clinical disease or intervention study, such as pharmacology, laboratory operations, computer science, or other areas. The continuity of professional development and experience of such a staff is essential to expand the capabilities for participation and advancement of this rapidly developing science of the design, organization, and conduct of cooperative clinical trials.
Biometry↗
The United Medical and Dental School of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals' MSc in general practice: graduates' perspectives.
AIM: Higher degrees have been proposed as one means whereby general practitioners can continue their professional development and avoid a slow decline into professional isolation and burnout. The United Medical and Dental School of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals' MSc in general practice has been available to experienced general practitioners for over a decade. This study reports some of the outcomes of participation for the 76 graduates of the first nine cohorts. METHOD: As part of an ongoing programme of evaluation the graduates were sent a questionnaire which, in addition to seeking information about attainment of intended outcomes, gave respondents the opportunity to write freely about the contribution made by the course to their own professional and personal development. Seventy-one graduates completed the questionnaire, a response rate of 93%. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: An increased confidence that arises not only from a broadened knowledge base and increased skills but also from a sense of having been enabled to explore more deeply into their discipline, is the most frequently and highly valued outcome of participation. Graduates appreciated having additional protected time and demonstrated an ability to use it productively. A further significant outcome was the ability of the course to confront those habitual assumptions of doctors which inform their practice in a manner that was both challenging and supportive. Tendencies to professional isolation and burnout appear to have been reversed with a greater sense of connectedness to their discipline. Doctors seeking to diversify their general practice careers beyond the task of providing medical services have found the MSc an important route for change.
Attitude of Health Personnel↗
Pediatric oncology at the National Institute of Pediatrics in Mexico City.
The Instituto Nacional de Pediatría (National Institute of Pediatrics) is a referral, non-profit, teaching hospital. This government-funded institution is dedicated only and exclusively for clinical and research in pediatrics. In their 29 years, it has dictated the norms for patient care through a multitude of research projects in all fields of pediatrics. The purpose of our institution is to continue developing human professional resources in order to improve patient care across the country, especially in pediatric oncology, in which there is a tremendous shortage of professionals. We believe that all Mexican children with this disease have the right to have as good treatment and prognosis as the children from developed countries.
Child↗
Identifying General Practitioners, Nurses, and Pharmacists Training Needs in Precision Medicine: A Survey Study.
INTRODUCTION: The clinical advances of precision medicine, elevating clinical decision-making through use of genetic and genomic data, lifestyle, and environment factors, is improving patient outcomes. Health care professionals report they are not competent or confident to deliver precision medicine to patients. To design continuing education for advanced practice nurses, general practitioners, and pharmacists, this research investigates perceived knowledge, importance, and self-efficacy in precision medicine. METHODS: Items were informed from results of a literature review and focus group study. A one-sample t test was used to compare differences for each item toward the theoretical neutral value (indifferent in our case, to number 3). To analyze differences between professions, parametric analyses of variance (ANOVA) was used. RESULTS: A lack of time, further complicated by a lack of knowledge about precision medicine services, and how to safely share patient data, with a perceived limited network of professionals in precision medicine were reported. Respondents demonstrated low confidence in precision medicine topics while indicating a willingness to pursue training aimed at improving their genetic and genomic competencies. Participants rated topics as only slightly important to their current professional roles. No significant differences were found across professional groups. DISCUSSION: Flexible formats for continuing education aligned to needs are required to target the knowledge and skills gap in precision medicine. Improved knowledge on topics including ethics, legal frameworks, and precision services is needed. Effective educational interventions aimed at enhancing the confidence and competence of health care professionals are essential to making precision care a reality for patients.
CPD↗
Attitudes of physical therapists who possess sports specialist certification.
Physical therapists contemplating sports specialist certification need research-based information to facilitate their decision-making process. The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of physical therapists who have received sports specialist certification. These attitudes encompass the physical therapists' sense of fulfillment and their feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the certification process. Factors contributing to the therapist's decision to become sports specialist certified have also been investigated. Physical therapists who are sports certified specialists (N = 110) participated in this study. Questionnaires were mailed to the entire population of physical therapists who are sports certified specialists (N = 148). Frequency distributions and percentages were used on qualitative data, and mode was calculated for quantitative data. One hundred ten surveys were returned, for a response rate of 74.3%. Analysis of responses from the subject group suggests that physical therapists feel a high level of satisfaction with their decision to specialize, and that continued professional growth, development, and personal achievement are the major contributing factors in their decision to specialize. Based on these findings, physical therapists appeared to display overall satisfaction in their attitudes toward sports specialist certification. Further research may be warranted to further examine sports certified therapists' attitudes toward the specialization process.
Adult↗
A national survey of certified, recertified, and noncertified oncology nurses: comparisons and contrasts.
PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: To explore opinions about the OCN credential, the ways in which it was obtained and retained, and the extent to which it is valued by employers. DESIGN: A descriptive comparison study using a cross-sectional survey design. SAMPLE: Questionnaires were mailed to a nationwide sample of 2,429 RN members of the Oncology Nursing Society; 1,217 (50%) surveys were returned. The majority of respondents were female, 30-49 years of age. Caucasian, and had practiced nursing for more than 11 years. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES: Certification status, work role characteristics, preparation strategies for the certification examination, and motivation for obtaining certification. FINDINGS: Oncology nurses recognize the importance and value of OCN certification. The primary reasons oncology nurses obtain and retain certification include the desire for personal achievement, professional growth, and development. OCNs were more likely to work in a setting where the employer supports professional development through continuing nursing education. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE: Because health care is increasingly delivered in ambulatory/home settings and the population is aging, oncology certification needs to be encouraged among nurses who work in these settings or with geriatric populations. Certified nurses tended to experience more job satisfaction than noncertified nurses.
Adult↗
Complementary health practitioners' attitudes, practices and knowledge related to women's cancers.
OBJECTIVE: To document the attitudes, practices and knowledge of 3 groups of complementary practitioners (naturopathic doctors, chiropractors and massage therapists) regarding women's cancers in general and ovarian cancer specifically. DESIGN: A mailed survey questionnaire was followed by a reminder card and a second mailing of the questionnaire. SETTINGS: National samples were obtained for naturopathic doctors and chiropractors. The massage therapist sample was drawn from Ontario only because of the absence of a national listing of massage therapists. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Practitioners reported response to patients' suspicious symptoms. Practitioners' perceptions of patients' motivations for seeking treatment. Practitioners' satisfaction with interactions with conventional practitioners. Practitioners' perceptions of their role in the care of women at risk of, or diagnosed with, cancer. Practitioners' perceptions of their knowledge regarding women's cancers. Practitioners' knowledge specific to ovarian cancer. RESULTS: A total of 894 completed questionnaires were returned, providing a response rate of 56%. The vast majority of practitioners who saw women with symptoms possibly related to cancer referred them to a family physician or a cancer specialist. Motivations that practitioners most frequently heard expressed by women seeking complementary treatments were "maximizing quality of life," "seeking natural approaches to healing" and "looking to stay well when disease is in remission." Most respondents were dissatisfied with patient-related communication with both family physicians and cancer specialists. The majority of complementary practitioners indicated that they have an important role to play in the postdiagnostic care of women with cancer. Considerable interest was expressed in further education concerning ovarian cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Whereas the professions reached through this survey differ in important ways from each other, they share an interest in being involved in the care of women with cancer, as well as an enthusiasm for the development of continuing professional education programs to help them better serve their clients.
Adult↗