Professionalism

After doing more research on professionalism, I came across a great article in the UB library database. The article is written by Paul B.S. Lai and is called Professionalism and #hellomynameis. This article does a great job of talking about professionalism in the medical industry and that how doctors need to act in a manner that shows confidence in their patients. One of the best parts of the article is when he talks about how there isn’t an universal definition of what professionalism looks like but that most people have the ability to identify it if it was presented to them. I completely agree with this statement that professionalism is more of a concept than a standard skill. Professionalism is something that isn’t really taught in a classroom but rather through observation and experience.

I know this personally as I really didn’t know how to act as a football coach when I started just over two months ago. This week there was a couple of things that I learned such as dealing with some problems that came about this week and saw how they handled them. One coach for example was having troubles at home finishing moving into a house and at one point had to apologize to kids because he was yelling at them too much. This was something I had never thought about as I thought that yelling was a part of coaching. I decided that I was going to try and see if I could put away what was happening in my life this week and focus on the team. What I love about working as a coach is something that I think few people feel. When everything in my life is going at or below average, for two to three hours I can forget about all that and focus on something I love. Not only that, but learning how to coach in a professional manner is a bonus. I will continue to document working on this soft skill and hopefully am able to see and feel results from practicing how to be more professional.

Lai, P. B. (2017). Professionalism and #hellomynameis. Surgical Practice, 21(3), 101–102. doi:10.1111/1744–1633.12262