In praise of postgraduate career clinics: Translating health professionals' willingness to engagement

Abstract

AimTo capture and retain healthcare staff in postgraduate courses relevant to individual career aspirations, service requirements and continuous practice development (CPD) within an English UK university.DesignTwo virtual career clinics for postgraduate practitioners to engage in CPD offers within the university. An online post‐enrolment online survey to explore their experiences of engagement with the university.MethodsMixed: qualitative and quantitative methods. Engaging 10 participants attended the career clinics, and 42 participants with an online survey.ResultsThe career clinics were well received by participants who mapped CPD requirements and individual career aspirations. The surveys exposed challenges with marketing and enrolment; however, these were mitigated with support. Four recommendations are presented within this paper applicable to the international postgraduate education of all health practitioners.

Continued professional development (CPD) provision for nurses: A qualitative exploration

“…The project review explored the difficulty of websites and lack of transparency when trying to navigate information including costs and other core course information. Through the wider “Converting Willingness to Engagement” project, an online career clinic was offered to healthcare staff, this proved to be a successful way to meet with potential students, to share course information and provide career guidance [ 14 ]. Review of this approach was found to be more successful in meeting postgraduate healthcare professionals' requirements in terms of information sharing than the traditional university open days [ 14 ].…”

“…Through the wider “Converting Willingness to Engagement” project, an online career clinic was offered to healthcare staff, this proved to be a successful way to meet with potential students, to share course information and provide career guidance [ 14 ]. Review of this approach was found to be more successful in meeting postgraduate healthcare professionals' requirements in terms of information sharing than the traditional university open days [ 14 ]. This provided an evidence trail to support ongoing engagement with providers and a positive mechanism for supporting career development decisions with frontline staff.…”

“…Further difficulties include the challenges of full-time employment, often combined with rotational antisocial shift patterns, unclear career advice, confusing postgraduate courses, balancing family time [ 12 ] and most recently, the global Covid-19 pandemic. These challenges are exacerbated for those who “trained” within hospital systems, who are unfamiliar with universities or have not engaged in higher education for long periods of time and therefore may encounter difficulties with digital literacy [ 14 ].…”