The Journal of continuing education in the health professions
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J Contin Educ Health Prof · Jan 2008
Effective interprofessional teams: "contact is not enough" to build a team.
Teamwork and interprofessional practice and learning are becoming integral to health care. It is anticipated that these approaches can maximize professional resources and optimize patient care. Current research, however, suggests that primary health care teams may lack the capacity to function at a level that enhances the individual contributions of their members and team effectiveness. This study explores perceptions of effective primary health care teams to determine the related learning needs of primary health care professionals. ⋯ Several characteristics of effective primary health care teams and the related knowledge and skills that professionals require as effective team members are identified. Effective teamwork requires specific cognitive, technical, and affective competence.
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J Contin Educ Health Prof · Jan 2008
Requesting a commitment to change: conditions that produce behavioral or attitudinal commitment.
There is a lack of clarity in the conceptualization of commitment underlying the commitment to change (CTC) procedure used by organizers of continuing education in the health professions. This article highlights the two distinct conceptualizations of commitment that have emerged in the literature outside health care education and practice. ⋯ As a result, the article also demonstrates the need for clarity in the conceptualization of commitment, especially to guide empirical research into the nature and strength of commitment produced by the variety of CTC strategies. Such research is relevant in increasing our understanding of how and why CTCs are able to influence practice change.
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J Contin Educ Health Prof · Jan 2008
Review"Directed" self-assessment: practice and feedback within a social context.
Accurate self-assessment appears to be difficult and, some would propose, even impossible. Recent reviews suggest that peer assessment may be more accurate and that multisource feedback (MSF) may inform self-assessment. We had conducted a series of studies of family physicians in an MSF program including assessments from patients, medical colleagues, and coworkers and self-assessment. Using this body of research, this article explores self-assessment within the social context of multisource feedback and investigates the influence of feedback from peers and others upon self-assessment. ⋯ We propose a model of "directed" self-assessment to facilitate the integration of external feedback, especially negative feedback, with self-perceptions and enable its use for practice improvement. Implications for education and research include increasing understanding of ways physicians assimilate external feedback and of the role of educators as facilitators of "directed" self-assessment and self-learning to assist physicians in integrating external feedback.
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J Contin Educ Health Prof · Jan 2008
Maintaining competence in the field: learning about practice, through practice, in practice.
Many of the assumptions about the "adult, self-directed learner" that form the basis of the current model of formal continuing education delivery are largely unsupported by the literature. Yet most practitioners maintain competence despite the apparent flaws in this model. After elaborating a set of problematic assumptions regarding the current construction of the self-regulating professional learner who uses formal continuing education to maintain competence, this paper explores another likely source for the learning that allows practitioners to engage in their own continuing professional development: the process of learning from their personal experiences of solving problems in their daily practice.
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