The Importance and Significance of Professional Identity Development - Essay Example

? Running Head: Professional Identity Professional Identity Inserts His/her Developing Professional Identity The current age is the age of technology, professionalism and flexibility. Competence and proficiency is required in every profession whether it is teaching, nursing or working for charity. Whether an individual is working for profit or for non-profit motive, a professional and challenging attitude is the pre requisite to tackle the altering nature of jobs and one has to meet all the demands in order to establish the individual identity. In this essay, we shall discuss on how the nurses and social workers tend to build their professional identity and develop a charismatic personality through their expertise and proficiency. Patch 1: Developing Professional Identity The Professionals- Nurses and Social Workers In the diverse field of a variety of professions, nursing and social working have their own significance in the aspect of building and serving a society or a community. Some people even, sometimes consider both the professions to be equal in status and vitality. Every state has health care as an important part of its social and public administration. This sector is served by the nurses who are special health care professionals and focus on taking care of the health, well being and development of the people of the surrounding communities. These professionals tend to maintain, recover or help the people attain the higher living standards, a healthy and superior quality of life (British Council, 2005). The nurses perform their jobs in a wide variety of specialized and distinctive fields, where they mostly work in teams or independently as well. They try to assess, analyze, plan, design and implement the health care programs. Social workers also form one of the major professional parts of any state. They are engaged in performing the job in an academic and professional discipline which requires them to commit and dedicate themselves to the quest of social justice, social welfare and change. They work in fields in order to undertake the research work and perform their duties for the betterment of the quality of lives and for the development of the group’s or individuals’ potential and strengths. Both the professions, nursing and social working, require utmost commitment, dedication and hard work in order to be proven effective and reliable for the purpose of goal achievement. They require the experts to have a professional and challenging attitude, leadership qualities and skills and abilities to tackle all sorts of related problems that hinder their path (Gordon, 2009). Since, both the professions are directly related to the services of community, the professionals undertaking them need to have a positive view point and absolute dedication towards the nature of job. Personal Viewpoints and Perspectives There are many elements which represent the professional and social standards of a society. Some of the perspectives regarding the social contexts come from media while other viewpoints are usually brought to us by our families and elders. The views from our surroundings and different channels of communication form a generalized opinion about the existing features of a society and its professionals. Similarly, I had also obtained so-called well-designed opinions and a well-formulated image of the nurses and social workers in the society. After my successful graduation, I was considering to join either the nursing profession or thought to volunteer as a social worker for the community’s development. Since, both the professions contributed a lot to my ever- increasing passion and determination of observing the community, I thought of counseling myself to some extent through the general viewpoints of the public. One of the main sources of information, i.e. media, elaborated upon the absolute necessity of nurses and social workers for the development and functioning of the community. I was perplexed when I realized that nurses and social workers formed the major part of the entire globe due to the increasing demands of services in the present scenario. Media, through the use of convincing advertisements, talk shows and other various programs, explains the ability and proficiency that a modern day woman bears in order to join the professions as dignified as nursing or social working. Since the phrase, ‘media is the reflection of the society’, exists, it is quite evident that it also portrays the general view of people regarding the professional and other competencies (NCBI, 1990). Personally, I have seen and experienced the nurses and social workers working with wholesome dedication for the betterment of the people of community. Besides this, providing the society with service without demanding them for anything in return is the best part which shows their responsibility and utmost devotion. Though, the media also presents nurses as not much specialized and educated, and some even depict them as Hollywood actresses, still their overall services outweigh any negative perceptions about them. On the other hand, the social workers are exhibited to be handling a lot of workload and attending professional meetings and coordinating activities. However, families disregard this profession for the reason that a lot of travelling and fieldwork is involved in it. My family does not appreciate working 40 hours full time a week and handling crises and conflicts much. Thus, many influencing opinions are given by the people and the surrounding environment regarding the choice of career and building a personality. In such contexts, the development of professional personality may be hindered by obstacles in the form of varying perceptions of the community. Patch 2: Service User Voice I, being the service user of healthcare services would expect a lot form the service providers such as nurses and especially social workers. I would expect them to take care of any health of fitness problems in my life and help me in the times when I need them. Being a user of the healthcare services, I would like to be provided with superior quality services, utmost care and satisfaction from the service providers. Fulfilling customer expectations and providing quality services at reasonable prices boosts the expectations of customers form the service providers. Extreme competition in the industry gives customers a variety of choices to select from and I would definitely go for the services which are most satisfying and comforting for me. The ever-increasing costs of medication and other related facilities have put the customers under intense pressure. The transparency of services, minimizing costs and maximizing benefits along with fulfilling the needs in a timely manner is what I expect the service providers to offer me. All the health care consumers need to be treated with customized services since the fitness and well-being needs of all the human beings vary. Thus, I would always expect my medical consultant and nurse to treat me the way I want. Moreover, being a customer of health care service, I expect that my opinion is taken and considered as a part of the participation and decision making regarding clinical issues and the discussion of care. In my view, this step would always let the clinics and medical practitioners improve their quality of services and understand the needs of their customers without conducting any formal market surveys. Obtaining feedback from customers in the form of survey questionnaires is another form of understanding the needs of consumers. It lets the health care service providers analyze the needs of customers, identify their demands, understand the trends shifting trends of the society’s living standards and well being, translate them into action plan and the, provide them customized services accordingly. I have been through the most satisfying services provided to me by the health and social workers of my community. The high quality of medical services, free of risks and medical errors is most likely to satisfy the consumers of health services in the maximum ways. Maintenance of good quality treatments, provision of genuine medicines and diagnostic services are the basic incentives for the customers of the health care services. Patch 3: Foundations of Professional Collaboration The terminology ‘professional collaboration’ refers to the interaction and coordination amongst the professionals, labor force, community and customers to engage and involve with each other in a participative decision making process. This entire process of binding with each other in a professional environment ensures the management of efficiency, effectiveness and timely goal achievement (Chih-Hungyang & Yu-Chiyu, 2006). The foundation of professional collaboration is laid by the functions of communication and understanding the counterparts in the journey of professionalism. The concept of professional collaboration helps share the professional competence, expertise and developed experiences. Taking into account the collective responsibility of all the people involved in a profession, it also increase the inter professional communication and the availability of human as well as capital resources. With regards to building the professional identity and collaboration in health care and social working sector, few elements need to be necessarily possessed by the stakeholders of the industry. For instance, in the medicine sector, the nurses need to maintain good public relations and excellent treatments with their patienst3and other type of customers in order to be professionals (Downes, 2000). The social workers need to understand the requirements and demand of the society so that a proper and sophisticated service plan is established. For the purpose of such shared goal achievement, the stakeholders of the health care and social services sector have to work in harmony for the combined decision making efforts of the good provision of services (Rebecca Riley, 2007). The service providers, in particular, should possess good communication and interpersonal skills so that there is no gap left in the interaction and collaboration between the organizations and the customers. They need to come up to the expectations of the customers through their ability to exchange their thoughts and ideas and translate them successfully into actions. This would give immense advantage to the professionals and other users of the service as well. Though, there are advantages of building the professional collaboration network, however, some disadvantages of this idea exist too. For instance, the communication network of such a huge network of stakeholders might become difficult to manage. It may also be time consuming, and require utmost commitment and dedication by the people involved in the process of professional collaboration. There can be a remarkable resistance shown by the group and its members in quest of professionalism. Lack of collaborative skills and resources might not let the whole process meeting goals (Sredic & Dropic, 2010). Moreover, due to the varying levels of experience, the ultimate of building collaborative professionalism might lose its value. The learning obtained from this study can be extremely useful in building the career in the field of nursing in future. It gives the idea of how the ability of communication and interpersonal relationship will be helpful in meeting the demands and expectations of my career. The discussion suggests that the professional identity in any field in general and, in nursing in particular is only possible through leadership skills and considering the well-being of society and customers along with our own goal achievement. In my opinion, it is necessary to match the expectations of customers with our services in order to gain a professional position in the career building aspects. By combining the discussions undertaken in the two patches above, we come to the conclusion that identifying the needs of the service users and fulfilling their expectations is the need of the career especially, in careers such as social working and nursing. It suggests that every consumer of service is different in these professions and that we have to give them customized services in order to satisfy them (Sherritze, 2005). Furthermore, while choosing a career, there are certain elements such as social opinion, advices of family and influence of media, which influence our decisions as well. Media and social perspectives depict the profession of nursing as a relatively low paid job and social working as more of a field work. This factor also hinders the development of professional personality in our professional lives. Be it nursing, teaching or any other profession, in my view, the communication skills and other professional abilities contribute a lot towards quality delivery of the services in order to keep them happy and satisfied. Looking at the significance of such capabilities and talents, I feel that they are even more significant in playing a vital role in the health care and social service sector. The importance of such skills increase in the nursing and social service sector for the reason that these careers require direct and tailored services to the needs to customers. For that purpose, it becomes essentials for the service provider to carefully and fully communicate with the service user in order to make proper diagnosis. Thus, the foundation of our professional collaboration is laid by many societal and personal elements. It also involves our own skills of communication, interpersonal relationships, and management and planning abilities. The aspects of combined decision making and the fulfillment of mutual goal achievement are also included in building the professional identity in association with our career (Riley, 2007). Besides all these factors, it is also essential to keep the stakeholders and the service user well informed and aligned with the organizational goals and concerns. Thus, to conclude we see that the professional identity in any career is based on the dominating factors prevailing in the society. Furthermore, it also depends on our abilities and skills as to how we manage to align our capabilities with the demands of our profession or career. References Patch 1 British Council, (2005). Nursing and Midwifery. British Council. Accessed Online, Retrieved on July 1, 2011 from < http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-infosheets-nursing.pdf> NCBI, (1990). Medicine and Media. RCN History of Nursing Group. Accessed Online. Retrieved on July 1, 2011. Winsome Gordon, (2009). Social Work. UNESCO. Accessed Online. Retrieved on July 1, 2011 from < http://www.unesco.org/education/mebam/module_3.pdf> Patch 3 Chih-Hungyang and Yu-Chiyu, (2006). Exploring Inter-professional Collaboration within Action Research Group in Health Care Sectors. Department of Early Childhood Care and Education, Cheng Shiu University, Taiwan. Accessed Online. Retrieved on July 1, 2011. Mike Downes, (2000). Changing Professions: Inter professional collaboration in health care education. Southern England Consortium for Credit Accumulation and Transfer. Accessed Online. Retrieved on July 1, 2011. Mr. Dejan Sredic, Ms Emira Dropic, (2010). Inter-professional Collaboration in a Family Medicine Programme in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1998 to 2010. Accessed Online. Retrieved on July 1, 2011. Rebecca Riley, (2007). Review: Working together: inter professional collaboration. Journal of Health Care. Sage Journal online. Retrieved on July 1, 2011. Sonja Sherritze, (2005). Professional Collaboration Day: Synergy through Collaboration Panel. Volume 30, No. 10. Read More