Commitment to Life Long Learning Should Also Entail The Goal to Differentiate and Distinguish Yourself As A Professional
             In his book, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, Donald A. Schon discusses the crisis in confidence of professional knowledge that has epidemically infected the public's opinion of traditional professionals such as physicians, educators, politicians etc. The areas of the skepticism cited by Schon – professional self-interest, hiding behind policies and procedures (bureaucratization) and doing what's best for me not what the customer expects (subordination of the interests and its customers) are equally and unfortunately extended to all healthcare professionals suggesting that professionals may be out of touch with reality and the needs of their constituents. To develop a prescription to help reverse the current crisis, he used the following key constructs and concepts in his book - Technical Rationality (the high hard ground of theory), Reflection-in-Action (descending to the swamp to engage the challenges and messes) and Reframing. The choice to take the low road is a form of reframing where the professional translates for and better communicates with their constituents to create an enhanced environment of trust and credibility.
             The quality professional is the key individual in the journey to reestablish the public's confidence in the practice of medicine and the healthcare delivery system. The emphasis on commitment to continuous quality improvement can be demonstrated by publication of customer friendly and statistically process-controlled data. On both the inside and the outside of an organization, the quality professional must display a visible badge of professionalism that evokes both trust and credibility.
             Unfortunately, as a quality professional, just doing your job well in the highly professionalized healthcare environment doesn't necessarily re...