Employment in the Healthcare Field - Research Paper Example

Employment in the Healthcare Field I hereby write this letter to introduce my report on recommendations for developing a career on healthcare management profession. The report introduced by this letter mainly targets individuals who are developing or planning to develop a career in healthcare management and who intend to make their children develop a career in this field. In writing the letter, I purpose to encourage them to read the report that follows this letter because it would be of very great assistance to their endeavor. The report contains five parts. The first part can educate individuals who would like their children to develop a career in healthcare management. This is because the part contains recommendation on steps that could be made to enhance professional development among this group of individuals. Part 2 could educate both parents and teachers on the most recommendable steps to take in encouraging students to develop a career in healthcare management. Part 3 and 4 would be of very great assistance to individual learners who want to develop career in healthcare management. This is because it contains the recommendable steps that they could undertake to enhance their acquisition of necessary knowledge and skills. Thank you in advance for reading the report. I know that the knowledge and skills you have obtained would assist you in developing competency in healthcare management or help someone else become a better healthcare manager in future. Regards (Insert names here) Table of Contents Background 3 Purpose, scope, and limitations 4 Sources and methods 4 Report organization 5 Career development during pre-elementary and elementary education 6 Career development during high school and undergraduate education 7 Career development during postgraduate and work 8 Conclusion 9 Introduction Background Healthcare management is a very luxurious field to pursue a career. According to Buchbinder & Shunks (2011), healthcare management is a fast growing profession with increasing opportunities in different settings. This is because of the growing population that results to a greater demand for effective and high quality healthcare services. However, healthcare management has become very demanding as the healthcare institution continue to adapt complicated organizational structures to improve service delivery. Like other managements, interaction between academic and experiential learning plays a very great role in developing competency in healthcare management (Walshe & Smith, 2011). This makes individuals pursuing a career in this field to be required to advance their education to supplement their experience. Challenges encountered in healthcare management are different from challenges encountered in other management fields. According to Goldsmith (2005), healthcare management involves allocation of scarce resources among competing factions and maintaining something akin to equilibrium in the organization. Achieving this has not been easy because of interdisciplinary activities that are required to be undertaken. Multidisciplinary activities require teamwork activities. Therefore, professional in healthcare management need to understand how to achieve group cohesiveness and teamwork in the team they manage (Burn et al., 2011). This is actually among the most conspicuous challenges that distinguish healthcare management from the one taken in other management fields. Purpose, scope, and limitations This report explains how individuals can develop a career in the healthcare field. The purpose of the report is to inform young people who have ambitions of becoming healthcare professional about the necessary steps that they require to undertake to achieve their ambitions. Moreover, the report has a purpose of advising healthcare professionals on how to make their career grow to the management level. The report covers the process of developing a healthcare management career from its initial stages when an individual is in an elementary school. It then continues to explain how individuals can tailor their high school education to assist them achieve an effective career in healthcare management. The report lastly explains how a healthcare management can be developed during undergraduate and postgraduate education. However, the report has several limitations. One of its limitations is that it fails to identify individual and personal characteristics that can hinder development of a career in healthcare management. In addition, the report also fails to address how the issue of financial constraint that might affect career development in this field could be handled. Sources and methods Several sources of information would be used in the preparation of the report. One of the sources that would be widely used in this report would be ‘Career Development: The Process of Progression in Career Development’ prepared by Colorado Department of Education. Another source would be ‘The Career Development of Rural Elementary School Students’ written by Chris Wood and Yvonne Kaszubowski. Moreover, the source ‘Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education’ by Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson would be widely used in this report as well as the source ‘School-Based Career Development: A Synthesis of the Literature’ by the Katherine Hughes and Melinda Karp. The other two sources that would be used in this report would be ‘A Model for Career Planning in Healthcare: Investing in a Career Development Program Will Retain Workers for Growth’ by Robert Wilkes and ‘Developing Healthcare Leaders: What We Have Learned, and What is Next’ by Andrew Garman and Christy Lemak. The first source would be used to report how healthcare management career can be developed in different levels of education. On the other hand, the second source would mainly emphasize on the development of healthcare management career during elementary education. Third and fourth sources would be used to report development of a healthcare management career during high school and undergraduate education. The fifth source would be used to report how individuals should prepare for their career development activities throughout their lives while the sixth source would be used to report how healthcare professionals could improve their leadership skills for career as healthcare managers. However, an interconnection would be drawn from information reported by the six identified sources to reveal how a career in healthcare management could be effectively developed from its initial stage to its final stage. Report organization This report is organized into five parts. The first part is introduction, which introduces the concept discussed throughout the report. Introductory part of this report is divided into four subdivisions. The first subdivision is the background, the second one is the purpose, scope, and limitations, and the third is the sources and methods while the fourth one is the report organization. Part 2 explains development of a healthcare management career during the early stages of education. The stages of education discussed in this part are pre-elementary and elementary education. Part 3 explains the recommendations for the development of healthcare management career during high school and undergraduate education. Part 4 reports recommendation of development of healthcare management career during postgraduate education. This part also recommends on how an individual can promote his leadership skills as a healthcare professional to increase his effectiveness as a healthcare manager. The final part of the report is the conclusion drawn from the discussions on the other parts of the report. Career development during pre-elementary and elementary education Early stages of human development have several benefits. Elementary and pre-elementary educations are undertaken in the early stages of life. According to CDE (2012), this is the period in individuals undergoes a life of work fantasies, becomes aware of occupations, gains self-awareness, and gains occupational orientation. It is advisable for individuals especially those who want their children to develop a career in healthcare management to take advantage of this essential stage of life. They should do this by helping their children to develop work fantasies related to healthcare profession. Moreover, they should create occupational awareness on their children about the healthcare profession as well as orient them to the profession. The teachers in these levels of education should also play part in developing students in this stage to become better healthcare professionals in future. Career development in the pre-elementary and elementary education is mainly through developing interests on students about a specific career (Wood & Kaszubowski, 2008). However, in elementary education, teachers neglect their role of helping students to develop interests for careers as healthcare professionals. This has been making student to have a much harder time when trying to develop their healthcare careers later in their lives. To promote healthcare career development in this stage teachers should start putting emphasize on counseling students in this level of education about healthcare professions. Moreover, parents should plug in to assist the teachers in this work. In this stage of professional career development, there is little that individuals can do to develop themselves professionally. Career development during high school and undergraduate education Elementary education precedes the high school education. This form of education acts as a base for the high school education that in turn acts as a base for the undergraduate education. The major career development that takes place during high school education is occupational orientation and occupational training especially of basic roles (CDE, 2012). The training continues even during the undergraduate level of education but this time it emphasizes mainly on developing competencies in specific disciplines. This is the stage where individuals start to play a very great role in influencing their career developments. Therefore, the stage is very essential in a person’s professional life. According to Hughes & Karp (2004), career guidance and academic counseling is paramount during high school education especially to students aiming to get into complicated professions like healthcare management. It is during this period that individuals develop basic skills about a profession. This makes guidance to be a necessity. For the case of healthcare management profession, individuals should be provided to students by individuals who are already practicing the profession. This is because this kind of individuals understands the profession much better than the teachers and parents. However, teachers and parents should play part in promoting the interests of students on the profession. The reason for this is that interests on the profession make individuals to be motivated to acquire essential knowledge and skills about the profession. Most of the skills regarding roles and responsibilities of a profession are acquired during undergraduate education. For effective acquisition of knowledge during this stage of education, several principles for good practices should be adapted. Some of the principles include encouraging student-faculty contact, encouraging cooperation among students, encouraging active learning, providing feedbacks to learners, communicating expectations, and respecting diversity of learners (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). The principles are very applicable for the development of essential skills required for healthcare management profession. To achieve these principles in healthcare management, mentorship is required. Mentors would communicate the expectations of the profession and encourage active learning of students. Moreover, they would provide feedbacks on students’ developments during this stage of professional development as well as provide a specialized learning environment for each of the learner developing his profession as a healthcare manager. Career development during postgraduate and work Postgraduate education is the final education level that an individual should attain to enhance his effectiveness as a healthcare manager. It is important since it helps an individual to develop more specialized healthcare management skills. However, it is not paramount to healthcare management. According to (Wilkes, Maryville, & Bartley, 2005), an enhanced and continuous development is important in achieving professional competence especially among the medical professionals. Postgraduate education as well as on-job learning and training promote a continuous development among the healthcare professionals. This results to a substantial professional growth especially when an individual is transiting to the management level of healthcare profession. Therefore, healthcare professionals should further their education to supplement their experience in order to be effective in the management level of healthcare profession. Healthcare management field has been growing tremendously in the past years. Moreover, the growth is expected to continue in the future. This makes the challenges encountered in the profession to be growing from time-to-time. The most conspicuous challenge that of this field that has grown with a very high rate is management of multi-disciplinary teams (Garman & Lemak, 2011). This makes the professionals preparing themselves for this kind of a career to be required to improve their skills and knowledge so that they can remain relevant in this field. Postgraduate education plays a very significant role in enabling individuals to improve their knowledge and skills. Work experience and on-job training is very important in enabling healthcare managers to remain relevant in the industry. Therefore, it is recommendable that healthcare managers keep on improving their knowledge and skills through their careers. Conclusion Development of a profession in healthcare management is a process. This process starts during childhood when a student start schooling. In this stage, a student should be helped to develop interest on the profession. Moreover, the students should be introduced to various professions in this field. The process continues during the elementary education in which students are introduced to basic aspects of the profession. This is followed by professional development during high school education. In this stage, the students should be introduced to basic skills about the healthcare profession. Undergraduate stage of education is the stage in which most of the knowledge about the profession is gained. However, postgraduate training and on-job training for an individual to become a competent healthcare professional should supplement this stage. References Buchbinder, S. B., & Shanks, N. H. (2011). Introduction to Health Care Management. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning Ltd. Burns, L. R. et al. (2011). Shortell and Kaluzny’s Health Care Management: Organization Design and Behavior. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning Ltd. CDE. Career Development: The Process of Progression in Career Development. Retrieved from: http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdesped/download/pdf/TK_CareerDevelopment.pdf. On 7 October 2012. Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. Retrieved from: http://www.uis.edu/liberalstudies/students/documents/sevenprinciples.pdf. On 7 October 2012. Garman, A. N., & Lemak, C. H. (2011). Developing Healthcare Leaders: What We Have Learned, and What is Next. Retrieved from: http://www.nchl.org/Documents/NavLink/NCHL_Developing_Healthcare_Leaders__Nov_2011_uid11212011137292.pdf. On 7 October 2012. Goldsmith, S. B. (2005). Principles of Healthcare Management: Compliance, Consumerism, and Accountability in the 21ST Century. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers Ltd. Hughes, K. L., & Karp, M. M. (2004). School-Based Career Development: A Synthesis of the Literature. Retrieved from: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/iee/PAPERS/CareerDevelopment02_04.pdf. On 7 October 2012. Walshe, K., & Smith, J. (2011). Healthcare Management. Berkshire: Open University Press. Wilkes, R. C., Maryville, T. N., & Bartley, S. J. (2005). A Model for Career Planning in Healthcare: Investing in a Career Development Program Will Retain Workers for Growth. Retrieved from: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=ojwed. On 7 October 2012. Wood, C., & Kaszubowski, Y. (2008). The Career Development Needs of Rural Elementary Schools Students. Retrieved from: http://www.wa-schoolcounselor.org/Files/WoodKaszubowski.pdf. On 7 October 2012. Read More