(10) Professions & Professionalisation

Question 1

What is the professionalisation of medicine?

Answer 1

• Professionalism = the social/historical process that results in an occupation becoming a profession.
• Medicine, there’s a clear idea about their role & body of knowledge which has formal registration to ensure they are the only ones who can do it

Question 2

What is professional socialisation?

Answer 2

A process through which new entrants acquire their professional identities via a formal and/or informal curriculum

Question 3

What are the three elements of professionalisation?

Answer 3

• Establish control over one market without competitors
• Establish control over professional work practice
• Asserts an exclusive knowledge/experise

Question 4

Describe the differences between the formal and informal curriculums in the teaching of Medicine.

Answer 4

• Formal: through teachings in the medical schools and tested by assessments
• Informal: through observations to learn the beliefs and attitudes of doctors that doesn’t require an assessment

Question 5

What is the Medical act of 1858? What is its significance?

Answer 5

An act which gives the GMC the ability to self-regulates and select the people they want e.g. the doctors themselves decided who get in and out

Identify problems with self-regulation of medicine, therefore initiated “Tomorrow’s Doctors”

• A set of requirements for the new entrants
• Provide guidance of the teaching, assessments

Question 6

What is professional self-regulation in terms of Medicine? What are some of the problem with this?

Answer 6

• Doctors themselves decided who get in and out
• May not get new ideas
• May keep bad doctors if that was what GMC wanted
• Favours the interests of agents (aka doctors) instead of principals (aka patients)
• A sense of personal vulnerability so afraid of reporting

Question 7

How did the GMC change to tackle the inherent problems with self-regulation? What happened as a result?

Answer 7

• In 1993, the GMC came up with “Tomorrow’s Doctors”, however it wasn’t enough and therefore the government took more control
• They included lay people into the conference
• Each member is appointed individually
• Overseen by Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence

Question 8

What are the key components of revalidation?

Answer 8

• Participate in annual appraisal
• Maintain a portfolio
• Have a positive recommendation from a responsible officer