Unit(s) of Assessment	Weighting Towards Module Mark (%)
Individual Assignment – 3500 words	100

Healthcare organizations are unusual in the extent to which their workforces are considered to comprise professional occupations. This module aims to investigate the concepts of a profession and professionalization and the issues for health care organizations around managing the education and development of a professional workforce.

None

The module aims to enable students to analyse ‘professions’ as one type of occupational group. The module will evaluate the extent to which the power of professions enhances or limits policy options for organising and delivering contemporary health services. The module also deals with the issues of reflective practice and organizational learning.

On successful completion of this module, the student will be able to:  

• Apply the sociology of professions as one method of understanding the culture of healthcare organizations  
• Analyse the challenges professionals present for managers in the delivery of health services  
• Discuss the concept of a ‘learning organization’ and apply this theory to evaluate the extent to which this reflects the culture of healthcare organizations  
• Apply the concepts of single/ double loop learning and defensive reasoning to examine the opportunities and obstacles to individual, team and organizational learning  

1. Professions and professionalization
2. The health care division of labour and the consequences of jurisdictional change
3. Professional self-regulation
4. Creating citizen-consumers and entrepreneurial professionals
5. The medicalizing of society?
6. Individual and Organizational Factors in Learning
7. Reflective practice
8. Single and double loop learning
9. The learning organization

The teaching and learning methods include:

• Lectures
• Discussion
• Group work
• ULearn 
• Self directed reading 

12/12/2008