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Affiliation
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School of Rural Medicine, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia rmcclure@une.edu.au. |
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Abstract
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One of the defining characteristics of a profession is that its members take responsibility for enabling, educating and training emerging professionals in their field. This education role goes hand-in-hand with a profession’s responsibility to monitor members’ adherence to ethical, technical and professional standards.
In the field of injury prevention, there are many who have incorporated this service role into their professional DNA. We can all identify mentors whose passion for educating future injury prevention researchers and practitioners seems to have grown as their experience and opportunity to contribute does too.
Yet surprisingly, there are very few opportunities for injury education enthusiasts to share their teaching methodologies and approaches for other educators to learn from. There are few platforms, either for written text or verbal exchange, that document pedagogies, curricula and innovative achievements in a way that facilities academic development. Where is the body of knowledge we can use to inform budding professionals and help them make sense of their new professional life?
We all tend to see things from our own perspective. At one end of the injury academic contimuum is the lay view that injury prevention is simply common sense. At the other are the researchers who view injury prevention as high science. Somewhere in the middle are those who focus on the translation of the science to practice, and back again. How do we balance the seasaw with regards to our educational responsibilities? What do we teach our students? Do we measure up as professional educators or do we expect next generations to learn injury prevention, using an apprenticeship model, by watching us do what we are currently focused on doing?
Language: en |