Register for email alerts and news feeds:
This journal | BMJ Group
rss
Postgraduate Medical Journal 2007;83:518-524; doi:10.1136/pgmj.2006.053066
© 2007 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and The Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine.

EDUCATION AND LEARNING

Personal development plans and self-directed learning for healthcare professionals: are they evidence based?

Stephen F Jennings

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Stephen F Jennings
Faculty of Health, Staffordshire University, Blackheath Lane, Stafford, ST18 0AD, UK; sfjmedical{at}btinternet.com

ABSTRACT

The UK chief medical officer’s recommendations for the re-licensing and performance management of doctors will mean a move from a formative towards a summative role for appraisal and its adjunct, the personal development plan. Where does this leave medical educators trying to promote reflective learning? It is taken for granted that self-directed learning is the sine qua non of all adult learning. But is it? This review re-evaluates self-directed learning and its corollary, the personal development plan, in the light of the chief medical officer’s report, seeking the evidence behind today’s accepted educational practice. It discovers a reality which challenges assumptions long enshrined in medical education.

Abbreviations: CMO, chief medical officer; DENS, doctors’ educational needs; GP, general practitioner; NHS, National Health Service; PDP, personal development plan; PUNS, patients’ unmet needs


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

This Article

Services
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with

Register for free content

The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.

Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.