In the Midst of Dealing With Changes in Continuing Education: A Mental Model to Support Well-being and Action

Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions (03/14/24) Shershneva, Marianna; Anderson, Barbara

During periods of substantial change, there are steps continuing education (CE) professionals can take to feel supported and maintain their well-being. Researchers examined these instances —as they transitioned from independently operating health professions CE units to becoming a Joint Accreditation provider of interprofessional CE and creating and using a diversity, equity, and inclusion toolkit for Accredited Continuing Education—to determine what made them attainable. Additionally, they considered a social cognitive theory, a schema theory and a normalization process theory. Their trusted mental model included five steps in the CE planning and implementation process. Through interviews with clinician-learners, they were reminded of the connection between positive reinforcement and achieving the desired result. "Thus," they concluded, "measuring the CE change and its impact on learners and their patients is also a tool to sustain emotional comfort during the turbulence of a change cascade, given the measures show progress in a desired direction."

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