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Definition Of Professionalism

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Prior to beginning our unit on professionalism, I had a very vague understanding of what it meant to be considered a professional. To be a professional, I thought, meant to simply obtain the technical competency or skills required of an expert within their occupational field. If one could meet this high level of expertise, then it seemed appropriate that one would be considered a professional. As our class discussion progressed, however, it became apparent that the definition of a professional is much more complicated and can be interpreted in many different ways. Thus, my definition of professionalism is no longer limited to the mere description of obtaining expert knowledge. Instead it has grown to encompass several more attributes that are …show more content…

accounting, law). During the “golden age” of sociological study, scholars tended to follow outdated criteria that had to be met in order for an occupation to be considered a profession. Rather than focusing on the conceptual framework used during the “golden age” of study, scholars should be more concerned with how these attributes professionalism vary as we observe different professions. As the number of contemporary professional occupations continues to grow, our understanding of professionalism must adapt to include these new professions. During our most recent class discussion we could not decide whether to place certain occupations in the “profession” or “expert knowledge” columns shown on the board. An entrepreneurial occupation created a debate amongst the class because this line of work has varying levels of expert knowledge or autonomy and was therefore difficult to relegate to a single column. This is a perfect example of why the central themes of professionalism discussed in the article should not be used as boundaries to exclude certain occupations, but rather, as variable characteristics that can change based on the profession being discussed. For instance, during the initial stages of modern medicine, doctors had technical autonomy when it came to medical knowledge. Nowadays, almost anyone can research their symptoms on websites like WebMD, thus slightly eliminating the monopoly on medical knowledge held by doctors in the 20th century. However, just because the Internet has created a lack of autonomy within certain medical practices, it does not mean that doctors can no longer be considered professionals. The public may have greater access to medical information, but as the article mentions, merely drawing upon a body of knowledge rather than controlling it creates a

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