Transformative Learning in Healthcare and Helping Professions Education

Building Resilient Professional Identities

Edited by:
Teresa J. Carter, Virginia Commonwealth University (Retired)
Carrie J. Boden, Texas State University
Kathy Peno, University of Rhode Island

A volume in the series: Adult Learning in Professional, Organizational, and Community Settings. Editor(s): Carrie J. Boden, Texas State University.

Published 2019

Transformative Learning in Healthcare and Helping Professions Education: Building Resilient Professional Identities is a co-edited book (Carter, Boden, and Peno) with invited chapters from educators who share our passion for learning in healthcare and the helping professions. The purpose of the book is to introduce professional learners (students, residents, and others in professional training) to transformative learning for building resilient professional identities amid practice environments that include widespread burnout and compassion fatigue. With a diverse set of authors engaged in clinical and educational practice in academic medicine, nursing, dentistry, physical therapy, mental health counseling, science education, psychology, social work, and inter-professional collaborative practice, we offer strategies for building resilience throughout the years of professional training and into professional practice. We do so through the experiences of authors involved in healthcare and the helping professions to illustrate how some are coping with the challenges of burnout and compassion fatigue through learning that can be transformative.

This book explores the nature of professional identity formation by examining ways that professionals in training can thrive amid the challenges of today’s stressful practice environments. First-hand stories of resilience illustrate how learners, as well as educators in these professions, are addressing adversity, career decision-making, service to the underserved, and the self-care needed to provide excellent care for others. The prominence of transformative learning within adult learning theory is illustrated for its potential to revise the meaning that learners make of their experiences and open up new possibilities for renewed vitality in professional education and practice environments.

The book has two primary audiences: professional learners in healthcare and helping professions education, and their educators who are often professional practitioners themselves. These educators have a significant role in influencing the next generation of professionals by serving as mentors, role models, and teachers. The importance of fostering learning that is transformative has never been more important than it is today for those who will work in these demanding professions. We invite readers to discover experiences and strategies for achieving individual wellbeing, as well as opportunities for building a culture within professional education and practice settings that will foster resilience.

CONTENTS
Foreword. Preface. Acknowledgments. Introduction. PART I: TEACHING AND LEARNING FOR CHANGE. Therapists in the Making, Charity Johansson. Developing Professional Identities and Fostering Resilience in Medical Students and Residents: Transformative Learning on the Texas–Mexico Border, Judith E. Livingston and Marsha R. Griffin. A Tale of Two Africas: Transformative Learning in Global Health Electives, Scott T. Armistead with Teresa J. Carter. A Long Tradition With Implications for Professional Learning: Situated Learning in a Community of Practice, Teresa J. Carter and Bryan Adkins. PART II: DEVELOPING A PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY. The Physician Archetype: Fitting the Pattern, or Breaking the Mold? Doug Franzen. Building Professional Identities by Learning From Mentors and Role Models, Teresa J. Carter, Ellen L. Brock, Frank A. Fulco, Adam M. Garber, Reena H. Hemrajani, Bennett B. Lee, Scott C. Matherly, Emily R. Miller, and John G. Pierce Jr. Volunteerism With Vulnerable Populations: A Catalyst for Professional Identity Formation, Christopher Keith Brown Jr. Case Study of a Science Teacher’s Professional Identity Development Across a Career, Elaine Mangiante. Using Transformational Learning as a Framework for Medical Student Remediation Experiences and Professional Identity Formation, Pamela O’Callaghan, Kelly E. McCarthy, and Deborah J. DeWaay. PART III: BUILDING CAPACITY FOR RESILIENCE. Outdoor Adventure-Based Group Work to Promote Coping and Resilience Among Child Welfare Workers, Christine Lynn Norton, Michael Schultz, Amy D. Benton, Cameron Kiosoglous, and Carrie J. Boden. Transformative Learning in Times of Adversity, Patrice B. Wunsch, Michael D. Webb, and Teresa J. Carter. Building Resilience in Healthcare Professional Trainees, Wendy L. Ward, Carrie J. Boden, and Ashley Castleberry. Flourishing in the Workplace: Enhance Professional Resilience and Promote Well-Being with Appreciative Inquiry, Marion Nesbit and Teresa J. Carter. PART IV: CARING FOR SELF AND OTHERS. How a New Heart Transformed Mine, Mary L. Falk. A Case for Self-Care: Changing Luxury to Necessity, Amanda J. Minor. Informal Learning in a Community-Based Health Education Program: The Transformative Experience of One Interprofessional Team, Maureen Coady. About the Editors. About the Contributors.

REVIEWS
"I enjoyed reading this book as it provides different healthcare professionals’ rich firsthand experiences and reflections that are essential for their becoming process as a healthcare professional, which is not easily accommodated in a short medical journal article. Junior professionals or learners can model the reflective cognitions of this book to realize their resiliency and transformative learning experience that is essential for their professional identity formation. Given the complexity of the healthcare practice, the field must continue to transform in order to serve the need of society. This book, therefore, provides an opportunity for the healthcare education field to revisit the taken-for-granted assumptions on what should be taught to become a healthcare professional." Heeyoung Han Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Journal of Transformative Education (Read full review)