15 . 4 Personal growth and professional development

In this chapter, the twin concepts of personal growth and professional development will be examined. In many ways this is timely since governments worldwide are devising largely regulatory ways of ‘driving up’ and sustaining the quality of health care that health professionals provide.(1) However, a theme running throughout the discussion here will be that political pressure for what has been termed ‘accountability’ of the professions has led to a distortion of the means whereby this can be realized, and in the process has created a distancing of the professions not just from politicians but through them from society itself, the members of which are the primary focus for any caring professional. In contrast to this ‘top-down’ view of professional accountability, arguments will be presented for an alternative approach—one which provides health professionals with the means whereby they are able to give more clearly an account of what it is that makes them truly professional and through that develop their own professional practice.(2) The chapter draws on a wide range of literature that is both international and burgeoning. It seems that professional people feel they have something to say—and that they must say it now. Throughout the discussion, the term ‘professional’ will be used to refer to all those who work in this way within a primary care setting.