Education within the workplace: an overview – has the emphasis on education devalued the importance of experience?

Background

Radiographers have been encouraged to perform extended roles, blurring out traditional boundaries that had previously existed. Meeting the current demands within the clinical environment has coincided with dramatic changes in the provision of professional education. Qualifications gained at the beginning of a radiographer's career provide us only with an initiation period now superceded by the importance of obtaining advanced skills and knowledge.

Aim

To assess the importance and value of education within the workplace and whether this undervalued the importance of experience.

Method

Information was assimilated with the distribution of 120 questionnaires to the Breast Screening Units throughout Humberside/ Yorkshire regions relating to postgraduate education within the departments covering all mammographers. The results were completed when all units were undergoing assimilation onto the new banding procedures.

Conclusion

Preliminary results indicate that people felt that, in order for career progression to take place, radiographers had to extend their role by entering into some sort of academic framework. The undertaking of academic qualifications on the whole had proven to be a positive experience. The Agenda for Change (HMSO, 1999) tried to address the previous absence of National Guidelines that had hindered the innovative role of radiographers and rewarding them for the job that they do. However, it was felt that experience had not been recognized and correlated to radiographers feeling a low perceived status within the department.