Equity in the Classroom and the Clinic: Understanding the Role of Sociology in Health Professional Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 0092055X2110533
Author(s):  
Ann Taylor ◽  
Caragh Brosnan ◽  
Gwendalyn Webb
Keyword(s):  
Professional Education ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Future Health ◽  
The Social ◽  
Student Cohorts ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
Language Pathology ◽  
Conversation Piece ◽  
Reflective Skills

Sociology teachers often encounter students studying to be future health professionals; sociology content can assist students to increase their understanding of patients, the social context of health and illness, and the social determinants of health. Engaging these students in sociological thinking can be challenging because of their diverse social locations and their identification with their future profession, which may emphasize clinical competence over broader reflective skills. In this conversation piece, we encourage critical reflection on the assumptions that underpin the teaching of sociology to aspiring health professionals. Through case studies of nursing, medicine, and speech-language pathology, we consider differences in the social locations of students and how sociological ideas are received by these professions. We argue that sociology teachers can assist health professions students to gain more from sociology by understanding these student cohorts and by reflexively considering power relations between teachers and students and between disciplines and professions.

WRITING THE FUTURE: CREATIVE WRITING, SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION, AND THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Farfán-Santos
Keyword(s):  
Creative Writing ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Health Professions ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Future Health ◽  
The Future ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
Core Concepts

Abstract In this article, I discuss the pedagogical interventions I make in the health professions by combining core concepts in medical anthropology with creative writing methods, emphasizing the need for future health professionals to not only think critically about the dominant biomedical epistemologies they have learned, but to also actively imagine creative solutions for the future. Here, the objective is to use creative writing as a tool to stimulate and practice creative thinking as a way of transforming the world we live in, our relationships to our bodies, and complicating the ways in which we think about health and illness. Creative writing exercises that force future health professionals to think outside of their training and to re-inhabit their own bodies and social worlds can have a powerful impact on the culture of medicine, health and illness, and the overall social beliefs and practices surrounding health care. As a medical anthropologist, I teach future health professionals creative writing with a social responsibility component with the intention of transforming our present social world, but also and perhaps more importantly, with the goal of imagining and creating a healthier future.

scholarly journals Key lessons for designing health literacy professional development courses

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucio Naccarella ◽  
Bernice Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Community Services ◽  
Realist Evaluation ◽  
Metropolitan Region ◽  
Learning Design ◽  
Design Framework ◽  
Future Health

Health literacy courses for health professionals have emerged in response to health professionals’ perceived lack of understanding of health literacy issues, and their failure to routinely adopt health literacy practices. Since 2013 in Victoria, Australia, the Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health has delivered an annual health literacy demonstration training course that it developed. Course development and delivery partners included HealthWest Partnership and cohealth. The courses are designed to develop the health literacy knowledge, skills and organisational capacity of the health and community services sector in the western metropolitan region of Melbourne. This study presents key learnings from evaluation data from three health literacy courses using Wenger’s professional educational learning design framework. The framework has three educational learning architecture components (engagement, imagination and alignment) and four educational learning architecture dimensions (participation, emergent, local/global, identification). Participatory realist evaluation approaches and qualitative methods were used. The evaluations revealed that the health literacy courses are developing leadership in health literacy, building partnerships among course participants, developing health literacy workforce knowledge and skills, developing ways to use and apply health literacy resources and are serving as a catalyst for building organisational infrastructure. Although the courses were not explicitly developed or implemented using Wenger’s educational learning design pedagogic features, the course structure (i.e. facilitation role of course coordinators, providing safe learning environments, encouraging small group work amongst participants, requiring participants to conduct mini-projects and sponsor organisation buy-in) provided opportunities for engagement, imagination and alignment. Wenger’s educational learning design framework can inform the design of future key pedagogic features of health literacy courses. What is known about the topic? Health professionals are increasingly participating in health literacy professional development courses. What does this paper add? This paper provides key lessons for designing health literacy professional development courses by reflecting upon Wenger’s professional educational learning design framework. What are the implications for practitioners? To ensure health professionals are receiving evidence-informed health literacy professional education, we encourage future health literacy courses be designed, implemented and evaluated using existing professional educational learning design frameworks.

scholarly journals Education Into Policy: Embedding Health Informatics to Prepare Future Nurses—New Zealand Case Study

JMIR Nursing ◽  
10.2196/16186 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. e16186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Honey ◽  
Emma Collins ◽  
Sally Britnell
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Education ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Health Informatics ◽  
Advisory Group ◽  
Nursing Informatics ◽  
Future Health

Background Preparing emerging health professionals for practicing in an ever-changing health care environment along with continually evolving technology is an international concern. This is particularly pertinent for nursing because nurses make up the largest part of the health workforce. Objective This study aimed to explore how health informatics can be included in undergraduate health professional education. Methods A case study approach was used to consider health informatics within undergraduate nursing education in New Zealand. This has led to the development of nursing informatics guidelines for nurses entering practice. Results The process used to develop nursing informatics guidelines for entry to practice in New Zealand is described. The final guidelines are based on the literature and are refined using an advisory group and an iterative process. Conclusions Although this study describes the development of nursing informatics guidelines for nurses entering practice, the challenge is to move these guidelines from educational rhetoric to policy. It is only by ensuring that health informatics is embedded in the undergraduate education of all health professionals can we be assured that future health professionals are prepared to work effectively, efficiently, and safely with information and communication technologies as part of their practice.

scholarly journals Study of the Integration of Disabled Students With Difficulties in Training

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
O Dorogina ◽  
E Ponomareva
Keyword(s):  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Academic Program ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
State University ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
The Social ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
The Disabled

The article reflects the experience of the support center for the disabled students at the Ural State University. The study investigates the attitudes of groups of students and teachers toward the integration of students with disabilities. The success of this academic program requires the integration of populations fromdifferent backgrounds. The main factors for the success of the program are the staff and the students. These two factors participate in creating a supportive learning atmosphere. This study observes the attitudes of faculty members (teachers) and students toward the students with disabilities. The study examines their contribution to the program, development of the social and educational climate in terms of this unique and challenging population’s ability to independently perform in an academic environment. The process of integration of students with disabilities into higher education informs the subject of integration in general, and therefore the attitudes of those taking part in the integration. The improvement of this process is the key to itssuccess. The results of the research can be used to create educational programs for teachers and to organize courses for university students. Keywords: the students with disabilities, professional education, tutor support center for disable people

scholarly journals Education Into Policy: Embedding Health Informatics to Prepare Future Nurses—New Zealand Case Study (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Honey ◽  
Emma Collins ◽  
Sally Britnell
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Education ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Health Informatics ◽  
Advisory Group ◽  
Nursing Informatics ◽  
Future Health

BACKGROUND Preparing emerging health professionals for practicing in an ever-changing health care environment along with continually evolving technology is an international concern. This is particularly pertinent for nursing because nurses make up the largest part of the health workforce. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to explore how health informatics can be included in undergraduate health professional education. METHODS A case study approach was used to consider health informatics within undergraduate nursing education in New Zealand. This has led to the development of nursing informatics guidelines for nurses entering practice. RESULTS The process used to develop nursing informatics guidelines for entry to practice in New Zealand is described. The final guidelines are based on the literature and are refined using an advisory group and an iterative process. CONCLUSIONS Although this study describes the development of nursing informatics guidelines for nurses entering practice, the challenge is to move these guidelines from educational rhetoric to policy. It is only by ensuring that health informatics is embedded in the undergraduate education of all health professionals can we be assured that future health professionals are prepared to work effectively, efficiently, and safely with information and communication technologies as part of their practice.

The Complexity of Health Disparities: More Than Just Black–White Differences

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Charles Ellis ◽  
Molly Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Health Disparities ◽  
Clinical Outcomes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Speech Language Pathology ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Language Pathology

Health disparities have once again moved to the forefront of America's consciousness with the recent significant observation of dramatically higher death rates among African Americans with COVID-19 when compared to White Americans. Health disparities have a long history in the United States, yet little consideration has been given to their impact on the clinical outcomes in the rehabilitative health professions such as speech-language pathology/audiology (SLP/A). Consequently, it is unclear how the absence of a careful examination of health disparities in fields like SLP/A impacts the clinical outcomes desired or achieved. The purpose of this tutorial is to examine the issue of health disparities in relationship to SLP/A. This tutorial includes operational definitions related to health disparities and a review of the social determinants of health that are the underlying cause of such disparities. The tutorial concludes with a discussion of potential directions for the study of health disparities in SLP/A to identify strategies to close the disparity gap in health-related outcomes that currently exists.

The Reflective Skill – Constructive-Prognostic Analysis in Methodological Context

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-148
Author(s):  
Natasha Tzanova ◽  
◽  
Nadezhda Raycheva ◽  
Isa Hadjiali ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Learning Experience ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Historical Aspect ◽  
Prognostic Analysis ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Functional Part ◽  
Cognitive Experience ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Reflective Skills

In historical aspect, the skill is among the key categories in the realm of human practice, which are often an object of different researches – psychological, pedagogical, and last but not least methodological. This is a fact, because the skill is a vital term for the description of productivity of learning experience at least in two dimensions – personally fundamental, guaranteeing its effective functioning in different situations and personally pragmatic, as a multi-level transformation of the cognitive experience, for the completion of certain social roles and the necessary qualities of the subject for this. The skill is a blend between those two dimensions of productivity both in higher education and in secondary school. The reflective skills are a structural and functional part of the transformation of the cognitive, affective, and psycho-motor experience and as such are included in the individual educational reality of the subject, and to a higher degree it defines it. This is the reason why the constructive-prognostic analysis of the reflective skill in the area of Methodology is pointing at the answer of the questions: What is this, what is its structure, how does it get integrated in the system of skills, how does it form and develop. The answers of those questions are basis of its methodological decoding in the process of training teachers and students in Biology. All of this describes the territory of the methodological context of analysing the reflective skill.

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