What I learned week 3
Updated Week 3:
This week, thanks to Beth Welch, I learned about the differences between pharmacists, physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals etc. I also learned about the current economies of all these positions. It was interesting to hear about the history of these position and how far they’ve come along. For example, back in the day in the mid 1900’s, pharmacists weren’t even allowed to speak to the patients. If the patient had a question about their diagnosis, treatment, diseases, etc. the pharmacist couldn’t answer the question, they had to refer them back to their physician. Now we know that times have changed, and patients are highly encouraged to speak with their pharmacists if they have questions regarding anything health wise.
Another important thing I learned was that the difference between an occupation and a profession. Someone with a profession holds authority and special privilege. There are other differences as well, such as that professions require extensive training and specialized knowledge, whereas occupations do not need extensive training. For example, designing a building would be called a profession, whereas constructing the building is an occupation. A professional is someone who wants to do their job because they want to help people, they don’t do it for shallow reasons. And being in healthcare, professionals should be doing what they’re doing for altruistic reasons, not because of salary or notoriety.
I was also educated about the extreme doctor shortage. There are fewer and fewer individuals going to school for medicine. Some reasons being they do not want to go to school for 8 years, live in student loans for the rest of their life and pay high mal practice insurance when they enter the workforce; it almost seems like your setting yourself up for disaster. General practitioners are also in demand because most who go to school for medicine, specialize in a certain topic, such as radiation therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, etc. In addition to this, because of the shortage, schools are trying to admit more and more students and admittance rates are capped out. In certain schools for medicine, such as in Boston, there are literally classrooms where students must sit on the floor; this leads to poorer education and lower test scores. As for pharmacists, there was a shortage, but now we have capped the number of pharmacists needed and are currently leveling out. Pharmacy technicians on the other hand are increasing in demand, and they do not need as much schooling as pharmacists. There will always be a demand for nurses, and the positive thing about this is that are multiple ways to receive your nursing license, a traditional four-year university is not the only way to obtain a nursing career.
Another important takeaway Beth Welch shed some light on was this idea of professionals and collaboration. Healthcare is moving towards a team approach, which is called inter professionalism learning. Collaboration is so important in the health care industry. To run effectively and efficiently, all members must work together to create the most positive outcome for the patient. Collaboration is not a new topic, and is in fact encouraged in almost every career and business. As a business student at Western New England, I’ve had numerous group projects and team building assignments that have fostered my knowledge of inter-professionalism. For example, Management 101 was a class dedicated to leadership, management, and effective group strategy, which we’ll see out in the work place, especially in a business setting. Nowadays, many pharmacy and physician schools deliberately have the students work together with the common goal of building a safer and better patient centered and community/population oriented U.S health care system.
Old Week 3:
This week I learned about the differences of pharmacists, physicians,
nurses, allied health professionals etc. I also learned about the current economies
of all these positions. First I learned that the difference between an
occupation and a profession is that someone with a profession holds authority
and special privilege. Professions require extensive training and specialize
knowledge, whereas occupations do not need extensive training. For example,
designing a building would be called a profession, whereas constructing the
building is an occupation. I was also educated about the extreme doctor
shortage. There are fewer and fewer individuals going to school for medicine.
Some reasons being they do not want to go to school for 8 years, live in
student loans for the rest of their life and pay high mal practice insurance when
they begin; it almost seems like your setting yourself up for disaster. General
practitioners are also in demand because most who go to school for medicine,
specialize in a certain topic, such as radiation therapy, occupational therapy,
physical therapy, etc. In addition to this, because of the shortage, schools
are trying to admit more and more students and admittance rates are capped out
in certain schools for medicine such as in Boston so there are literally classrooms
where students must sit on the floor; this leads to poorer education and lower
test scores. As for pharmacists, there was a shortage, but now we have capped
the number of pharmacists needed and are currently leveling out. Pharmacy
technicians on the other hand are increasing in demand, and they do not need as
much schooling as pharmacists. There will always be a demand for nurses, and
the positive thing about this is that are multiple ways to receive your nursing
licenses, a traditional four-year university is not the only way to obtain a
nursing career. Healthcare is also moving towards a team approach, which is
called inter professional learning; preparing health professions students to deliberately
work together with the common goal of building a safer and better patient
centered and community/population oriented U.S health care system.
This week, thanks to Beth Welch, I learned about the differences between pharmacists, physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals etc. I also learned about the current economies of all these positions. It was interesting to hear about the history of these position and how far they’ve come along. For example, back in the day in the mid 1900’s, pharmacists weren’t even allowed to speak to the patients. If the patient had a question about their diagnosis, treatment, diseases, etc. the pharmacist couldn’t answer the question, they had to refer them back to their physician. Now we know that times have changed, and patients are highly encouraged to speak with their pharmacists if they have questions regarding anything health wise.
Another important thing I learned was that the difference between an occupation and a profession. Someone with a profession holds authority and special privilege. There are other differences as well, such as that professions require extensive training and specialized knowledge, whereas occupations do not need extensive training. For example, designing a building would be called a profession, whereas constructing the building is an occupation. A professional is someone who wants to do their job because they want to help people, they don’t do it for shallow reasons. And being in healthcare, professionals should be doing what they’re doing for altruistic reasons, not because of salary or notoriety.
I was also educated about the extreme doctor shortage. There are fewer and fewer individuals going to school for medicine. Some reasons being they do not want to go to school for 8 years, live in student loans for the rest of their life and pay high mal practice insurance when they enter the workforce; it almost seems like your setting yourself up for disaster. General practitioners are also in demand because most who go to school for medicine, specialize in a certain topic, such as radiation therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, etc. In addition to this, because of the shortage, schools are trying to admit more and more students and admittance rates are capped out. In certain schools for medicine, such as in Boston, there are literally classrooms where students must sit on the floor; this leads to poorer education and lower test scores. As for pharmacists, there was a shortage, but now we have capped the number of pharmacists needed and are currently leveling out. Pharmacy technicians on the other hand are increasing in demand, and they do not need as much schooling as pharmacists. There will always be a demand for nurses, and the positive thing about this is that are multiple ways to receive your nursing license, a traditional four-year university is not the only way to obtain a nursing career.
Another important takeaway Beth Welch shed some light on was this idea of professionals and collaboration. Healthcare is moving towards a team approach, which is called inter professionalism learning. Collaboration is so important in the health care industry. To run effectively and efficiently, all members must work together to create the most positive outcome for the patient. Collaboration is not a new topic, and is in fact encouraged in almost every career and business. As a business student at Western New England, I’ve had numerous group projects and team building assignments that have fostered my knowledge of inter-professionalism. For example, Management 101 was a class dedicated to leadership, management, and effective group strategy, which we’ll see out in the work place, especially in a business setting. Nowadays, many pharmacy and physician schools deliberately have the students work together with the common goal of building a safer and better patient centered and community/population oriented U.S health care system.
As we were discussion the roles of individual health care
members I started to wonder what conflict could arise. When collaborating in a
group setting, there is more intelligence, more experience as well as more
opinions. I started to wonder if there ever is any animosity between group
settings when it comes to recommending treatments for patients. I question this
because many physicians go through years of schooling and assume that they gave
this great body of knowledge and all their presumptions must’ve correct. But, people
make mistakes, and therefore I think the introduction of collaboration was introduced
to not only fact check doctors and physicians, but to learn off each other. So,
I’m sure there can be high tension moments, but inter-professionalism is all
about working together for the common good of the patient, so if healthcare professionals
can keep that in the back of their mind I believe.
Old Week 3:
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