Are you (or do you want to be) a health system or medical education leader or administrator? Are you tired of more of the same ? Are you desperately looking for ways to break the status quo? Are you interested in real and meaningful ways to evolve existing models of learning, improvement and development in healthcare and medical education systems-to one that is aligned with quality, patient safety and personal / professional fulfillment?Change, no matter how urgent and/or clear the need, is never easy. And meaningful change is even more difficult to implement. The first point of call is to recognize our own unconscious beliefs that guide our behaviour. Our assumptions about our own and others’ experiences influence our behaviour-implicit bias. Awareness of these implicit / unconscious biases and assumptions is essential if we are to reframe our experiences for behavioural change. In essence, the key ingredients to behavioural change-and thereby system change-are: Motivation, Understanding and Ability. Knowing what to do doesn’t necessarily mean we will actually do it. Meaningful change is impossible unless all three ingredients are present.
Our environment strongly influences our behaviour-both positively and negatively. Developing an understanding of these environmental influences can not only help our motivation, understanding and ability of the change / improvement process but also give us the confidence that we can actually do it.
This book presents a revolutionary new vision, concepts and models of transforming health professions lifelong learning and leadership development, in-line with the changing needs of our society. It is NOT an attempt to provide specific solutions to problems in healthcare and medical education systems, as developing solutions must require a contextual, as well as personalized approach to issues at hand. Instead, I have provided concepts and strategies for healthcare and medical education leaders and administrators to develop localized and contextualized approaches for improvement.
The content of this book and the vision presented is derived from my own experience of not just conceptualizing, but also successfully realizing the new model of lifelong learning and leadership development as the Founding Associate Dean Lifelong Learning, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta, Canada.
