PROFESSIONALISM AND THE GENERATION GAP

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PROFESSIONALISM AND THE GENERATION GAP

• Adelene Grobler
• UNIBS/EPOG

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Generation Gripe

• To some older professionals in the health field,
  long hours, late nights and always being on call
  are a testimony to their devotion to their work
• They dont see the same drive in the new
  generation
• In a survey of American physicians aged 50 65,
  64 said doctors trained today are less
  dedicated and hardworking than physicians who
  entered medicine 20 to 30 years ago (Adams, 2004)

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Generation Retort

• Younger professionals dispute this. They maintain
  that lifestyle considerations are shaping how
  they approach their practices to create a
  healthier profession that strives to balance
  professional and personal lives
• They maintain that older professionals who
  grumble about this shift in attitudes are envious
  (Adams, 2004)

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• Just because younger professionals are getting
  better at setting boundaries between their
  professional and personal lives doesnt mean they
  are less committed. Without those boundaries,
  health professionals risk burnout and being
  committed to a rehab unit

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The conflict

• The conflict in the medical workplace that
  triggered this recent dialogue on professionalism
  is between the Baby Boomer Generation (1946
  1964) and Generation X (1965 1980). Baby
  boomers define professionalism in terms of hours
  worked and complete dedication to the job.

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• Dedicated to life balance, Generation Xers do
  not aspire to be like baby boomers.
• They believe baby boomers are hypocritical and
  susceptible to early burnout.
• In fact, having been raised by absentee,
  workaholic baby boomers, their priorities are
  very different from their parents.
• Their focus on caring for themselves and their
  families is a positive attribute of Generation X.

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• Baby boomers have confused work ethic with
  professionalism. Still in charge of the medical
  system, baby boomer physicians have continued to
  enforce a workplace that demands long hours,
  total dedication to work, rigid approaches to
  patient care, and disdain for anyone who does not
  accept their rules of life.

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• Generation X health professionals are not eager
  to join this work environment.
• In addition, Generation Xers skeptical of
  organizations and hesitant to make total
  commitments appear to be afraid of truly
  embracing the personal transformation that is
  critical to professional development.

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Generational Profiles
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Generational Profiles
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• As long as leaders in the health professions are
  allowed to equate professionalism with hours
  worked, an unbridgeable divide between the
  generations in the workforce will remain.
  Professionalism must be defined by the essential
  qualities of a health professional regardless of
  hours worked

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ESSENTIAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE HEALTH PROFESSIONAL

• Embrace being a health professional
• Caring and altruistic
• Honesty, integrity
• Team player
• Strive for excellence
• Accept the duty of serving patients and society

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Attributes of the future environment

• Patient focused
• Flexible work hours
• Prioritize practitioners well-being and life
  balance
• Reward excellence, not endurance
• Promote seamless team care
• Expect excellence and total commitment doing work
• Foster joy of being a health professional

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Ultimate Challenge

• Health educators need to stop defining
  perfection as being just like ourselves and
  realize that encouraging professional excellence
  in ways that are culturally and generationally
  diverse is the only hope for the future of
  medical professionalism.

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CONCLUSION

• Let us never allow a medical culture to exist
  where young students are afraid of falling in
  love with being a health professional .

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TASK

• CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT
• It is clear that the Health Educator should
  ensure that students are aware of and embrace the
  transformation from lay person to health
  professional by encouraging professional
  excellence in ways that are culturally and
  generationally diverse .

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RELEVANCE?

• How relevant is this problem to our context?
• Should the transformation from layperson to
  professional be addressed in training?
• HOW?

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SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT

• More students from previously disadvantaged
  educational backgrounds
• More first generation tertiary education students
• More culturally diverse classrooms
• Greater emphasis on Afro-centric values and
  perspectives