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.
TopIntroduction
On December 31, it has become a family tradition to sit around the table, share reflections on the year ending, and talk about the dreams we want to work on in the coming year. Each grape that accompanies the chimes is a new possibility to reinvent ourselves as a person. Professionally, educators have engaged in this exercise after annual feedback cycles with their leaders at the university. These moments are pure gold as they allow for new challenges and opportunities for development. A few years ago, in a talk about these objectives, one of the authors remembers the dean asked about three role models. At that time, she answered the names of former university professors, whom she admires and respects very much.
With his characteristic good humor, the dean inspired her not to limit professional development to be a professor as modeled by the university but to have professional goals. He asked to think about whom she is going to be in 15 or 20 years, looking for role models in personalities who are already doing it, and start a reverse engineering project to analyze what steps, decisions, and experiences they took 5, 10, 15 or 20 years ago.
At the time, true to be told, it seemed presumptuous to think that one should aspire to be like Audrey Azoulay, Anantha Duraiappah, or Mo Gawdat, but a quick search of their life experience in the internet search engine was convincing enough to seek the kind of experiences they had. Moreover, their training, jobs, and beliefs in the causes they served challenged the conversation and made a new one. As a result, these persons are proposing things that did not exist before.
It is an ambitious goal for health professionals, already practitioners or students alike, to dream and work to transform health systems truly. To do so, they cannot go through the very traditional and heavily transited roads of professional training. Instead, to adopt telemedicine, design e-health modules, and solve the challenges of the 21st century, they need to engage in a transformative experience of continuous professional development.
The objectives of this chapter are:
TopMain Focus Of The Chapter
Health professionals are leaders in a disciplinary field and have academic or care participation in which they demonstrate their commitment to society (López, Heredia & Olivares, 2020). In addition, most of them have participated in an educational role; some have a desire to teach in their community of practices, others do it to follow in the footsteps of a mentor, the nature of their responsibilities requires it, or a gradual introduction to pursuing graduate studies (Steinert, 2012). Other authors distinguish between decisions made consciously and those that presented themselves as opportunities or impositions of their responsibilities (Lopez & Heredia, 2020).
Another element that is important to notice is that no matter their motivations for entering either the health or medical field, these professionals engage in different activities and take on multiple roles (AMFEM, 2018; Harden & Crosby, 2000; Lopez & Heredia, 2020). Sometimes an individual has multiple responsibilities, for example, as a clinician, professor, or department leader, to each of these corresponds a particular set of skills that require constant development (Thorndyke, Gusic, George, Quillen, & Milner, 2006).