Clinical Learning Within a Community of Practice Framework
Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: Workplace learning (internship and preceptorship) is a well-established, traditional and highly valued component of health professional education, but it seems unlikely that traditional models will fit with new educational and clinical workplace realities. This paper argues that within the context of health reforms across most countries in the industrialised world, there is a focus on managing clinical work via dynamic self-organised teams, and that these teams can be conceptualised as 'communities of practice' (Wenger 1998). In addition, the emerging pattern of health service delivery as team based provides a learning environment and a context for a social learning framework within which to supervise new practitioners (interns). It is argued that this framework is better suited to clinical workplace realities than the dominant individualistic models. The paper begins with a review of the literature on healthcare teams and then reflects on teams as communities of practice. It then goes on to propose that healthcare teams encompass many of the features of communities of practice, in particular participating, 'knowledging', legitimate participation, and boundary spanning. The paper recommends that clinical workplaces enhance effective learning by encouraging new practitioners to engage in interactions with peers and more experienced practitioners and thereby promote the former's full participation in the healthcare team. For researchers, this approach suggests an alternative conceptual framework from which to investigate the global challenges facing clinical educators in the context of recent health and education reforms.
Author: Dale Sheehan
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2223034482