User:Peter morrell/professions

Professions require substantial education and training, members of the profession themselves decide the nature of the training and control entry to the profession; the profession is organised into one or more professional bodies; the profession lays down standards of conduct with which its members must comply.

Professional bodies

A professional body must set standards of education and experience that must be met by its members; deal with accreditation of e.g. university courses that are judged to meet these standards to facilitate entry; establish a code of conduct to regulate how members behave in their professional lives; establish mechanisms for disseminating knowledge of good practice to its members, and advise government and regulatory bodies about matters within its area of expertise.

Codes of Conduct and Practice

Codes of practice serve to maintain the overall integrity and high status of the profession itself, through regulating the conduct of its members, but they also aim to protect their clients from professional misconduct. Such codes of practice are periodically reviewed and updated to keep pace with changing circumstances. Professional bodies also serve to justify to outsiders the rights and privileges of the profession, and to defend it in times of public scrutiny or criticism. [ref]

"a profession of the highest integrity and competence."

All professional bodies have codes of conduct and/or practice that their members must follow. A Code of Conduct must look outwards and thus governs relationship between its members and society as a whole. Example: “In your professional role you shall have regard for the public health, safety, and environment.” It must also be inward looking, governing all aspects of professional practice. It must aim to balance the public interest with professional duties, ensuring that members are aware of and comply with relevant laws and regulations.

Members of a profession have a duty to the relevant authority, such as employers, client, university; should avoid conflicts of interest; should avoid misrepresentation e.g. be discrete and confidential. They also have a duty to the Profession: to uphold and enhance the good reputation of the profession in general.

The professional body must lay down guidelines on professional competence and integrity and ensure members regularly update their professional skills by a commitment to continuous professional development. Compliance with this is often linked to salary increases.

Structure, tone, hierarchy

Professions tend to be hierarchical and have a graded structure, being stratified internally by rank, age, experience and qualifications, etc: "a narrow elite...a hierarchical social system: a system of ranked orders and classes." [ref] An individual's role within a profession is usually "defined by professional demarcation and grade." This hierarchical structure might seem to create a conformist culture, to encourage favouritism or professional cronyism, and advancement within the hierarchy, professional rivalry, acute rank awareness and struggles between individuals vying for promotion within the structure of the profession. Being continually judged as to their competence and merit, can generate social tensions within a profession or sustain a climate of suspicion, and petty jealousies.

A. Worcester, Is Nursing Really a Profession? The American Journal of Nursing, 2.11 (Aug., 1902), pp.908-917 [1]

Conformity

A profession rarely seeks to change or challenge the established patterns in society, and implicitly accepts them and works with or around them. Likewise, professions can be seen as hidebound, conservative, and resistant to change and innovation: professions made uneasy by changes, They manifest a professional "conformity to the norm." Perhaps they appear to be suspicious of and hostile to change. They may also assert their own authority and so dominate their own field of operations.

Conservatism

"accountants have held tenaciously to a combination of attitudes that they consider to be conservative..attitudes sometimes displayed by statisticians and utility economists."

"the medical profession's conservatism."

military conservatism:

"a hierarchical divide between the knowledge-authorities in the professions and a deferential citizenry." "autonomous democratic cultures of the professions." "domination of society by a narrow elite." "the institutional and cognitive structures of the professions." "Conservatism is a hierarchical social system: a system of ranked orders and classes." "the deference of the common people." "conservative religious authorities," "the conservative social system of the gentry," "the conservative order of the gentry." "conservative hierarchies." "the true goal of conservatism is to establish an aristocracy, which is a social and psychological condition of inequality." "People who believe that the aristocracy rightfully dominates society because of its intrinsic superiority are conservatives." "one of the goals of every aristocracy is to make its preferred social order seem permanent and timeless."

Professions therefore resemble "conservative hierarchies...a narrow elite, (an) aristocracy that is rigid, closed, and stratified...(constituting) a hierarchical divide between the knowledge-authorities in the professions and a deferential citizenry."

Paternalism

A profession acts as an elite social class, with its own corporate identity, and distanced to some degree from the society which it serves. There is an ambivalent relationship between members of a profession and the public they serve, often described as "professional paternalism," or sometimes referred to as "professional arrogance," as well as indifference, professional distance, or cultivating a professional manner, with which they are liable to treat their clientele. Paternalism can derive from the sense of elevation, demarcation [ref] and a profession comprising a self-acknowledged elite social group, [ref] and it flows from the higher status of being an elite class of privileged persons with a specialised technical knowledge and expertise that places them 'above' the rest of society. Professions – require long training, prescribed by profession and sanctioned by state

Identity, boundaries, roles, demarcation, Border disputes

Professions have generally arisen and become elevated naturally from lower trades and occupations through a slow process of maturation. (see Professionalization) They have established themselves, put down roots, established approved procedures and qualifications, obtained legal and political recognition and so have grown in size, power and sophistication through time, often from modest beginnings, and sometimes by eliminating competitors. They have an identity and a perception of their roles and responsibilities, but sometimes the borders are blurred as one trade blends into another related one. This can lead to 'border disputes' between professions where they meet in adjacent areas. For example, pharmacists, opticians, radiographers, nurses and doctors all converge in certain aspects of healthcare, and must reach agreement by defining which professionals are allowed to do which jobs. Alternatively, frictions and 'boundary disputes' can erupt between professions, with any ancillary trade that threatens to encroach upon the interests, affairs or domain of the more powerful profession.

occupational conflict working boundaries

blurred professional boundaries.

issues of professional demarcation and the need to dissolve traditional barriers

Boundary disputes can highlight barriers to interprofessional liaison between adjacent professions and their perceived position in the hierarchy of healthcare professionals.

The concepts of medical dominance and subordination of adjacent trades. The growth of the medical division of labour has been associated with a decline in the ability of the medical profession to determine the work content of para-medical occupations.

discussion of medical dominance and professional autonomy. and a professions' struggle for autonomy.

encroaching on physicians' role boundaries, potential boundary conflicts they posed for other members of the medical team, the resolutions of these conflicts, and the role boundaries perceived by relevant participants. pharmacy's boundary encroachment

This article explores the process of boundary demarcation within hospital settings by examining a new phenomenon in modern medicine: collaboration between alternative and biomedical practitioners (primarily physicians) working together in biomedical settings. and the ways in which the biomedical profession manages to secure its boundaries and to protect its hard-core professional knowledge. It identifies the processes of exclusion and marginalization as the main mechanisms by which symbolic boundaries are marked daily in the professional field. enable the biomedical profession to contain its competitors...to avoid overt confrontations and mitigate potential tensions between the two medical systems.