Nurturing Personal and Professional Development of Health Professionals in the Hierarchical and Collectivism Context

The ever-changing and fast-developing medical knowledge and skills are a fact accepted by the medical community of practice. Therefore the notion of lifelong learning is not new for this community. The same also applies to other communities of practice in healthcare services. However, the remaining question is whether medical and health professions education has equipped the graduates to conduct lifelong learning and embark on personal and professional development (PPD). The concept of deliberate practice is the backbone of PPD. This concept highlights the need for practitioners, either as medical teachers or medical doctors, to embark on continuous learning and improvement processes to maintain their expertise. This chapter will elaborate on the importance of continuous personal and professional development to maintain professional expertise. Two main concepts, deliberate practice, and reflective practice, will be discussed in this chapter. The discourse will include the interplay between practitioners’ awareness to continuously improve their expertise, their ability to engage in deliberate and reflective practice, the organizational and workplace culture and environment, and society’s needs. Specific cultural dimensions from Hofstede et al. (2010) in the Eastern context will be explored, specifically on how they affect the practice of PPD. This chapter will shed light on the possible effective PPD practices of healthcare practitioners and educators, such as needs-based PPD, portfolio development, and workplace learning, in the culture of collectivism and high power distance. At the same time, leadership from the top management is also pivotal in encouraging practitioners to conduct a systematic and comprehensive PPD.