ASSIGNMENT. Would you like to have a challenging and relatively creative assignment? Now you have the chance to become the next PD leader with a focus on a scientifically critical approach. The application deadline is October 30, 2017.
“The assignment is fun, but also requires quite a bit of patience and perseverance. You need to be prepared for it to take time to conduct well-rooted change work,” says Katarina Jood, who is passing the baton to the next PD leader after seven years.
Being a doctor demands more than medical expertise. The medical students must also learn other skills, such as meeting patients, making tough decisions, handling uncertainty and being able to cooperate in healthcare. It involves professional development, which has been conducted by Sahlgrenska Academy’s PD leaders for the past seven years.
Katarina Jood has had the assignment as the PD leader with a focus on the scientific approach since the professional development group was formed in 2011. She has long been interested in how doctors develop the broader skills that make them doctors instead of just medical experts.
“My perception is that this is something everyone can improve at. So it’s not just a talent you’re born with, but something that you can learn and deliberately develop during training and throughout professional life,” says Katarina.
She describes being a PD leader as a stimulating educational assignment:
“I’ve learned so much. I’ve had time and space to develop and test new teaching methods together with other committed people.”
The specific assignment, being responsible for the scientifically critical approach, has meant that she has been able to think a great deal about what is included in this approach and what components are the most central. What is it that the medical students are expected to learn during their basic training, why should they learn it, and how do they do it?
“Nothing of this has been obvious. I’ve also learned a lot about what medical professionalism means and how the structure of the teaching can be an obstacle and an aid to the students’ development of professional competencies. I’ve gained an entirely different understanding for the challenges the medical programme is facing both in Gothenburg and nationally, which I have great use of in my continued work as a course coordinator for the neurology course,” says Katarina.
Her greater responsibility as a course coordinator for the neurology course is the most important reason that she is now choosing to pass the PD baton on to the next person.
“I also believe it’s important that the same person doesn’t have the assignment too long. In many ways, it’s a creative assignment where one as a person makes a certain mark by driving the development in the way one understands oneself. It can be good for new people to come in at regular intervals who can see things with new eyes.”
The assignment as a professional development leader corresponds to a 20 per cent position, and shall be a part of an employment at the University of Gothenburg or Region Västra Götaland. The assignment is limited in time to two years, beginning on 1 January 2018. Apply no later than October 30.
Read the entire advertisement here: https://gubox.box.com/s/z2gsxf06vtzvykbom807ql2bi6tw09dm
TEXT AND PHOTO: ELIN LINDSTRÖM CLAESSEN
