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So Who Cares Anyway E1 From Silence to Voice · SoWhoCaresAnyway

Hello.
And welcome to So Who Cares Anyway, the podcast that shares learning, innovation, and ideas from the world of health and social care and way, way beyond.
My name is Ruth Germain, and I'm inviting you to join me each week with my inspirational guests to hear about who cares, what they do, their passions, knowledge, and ideas.
And importantly, the difference they are making to improve the health and well being of people in our communities.
I consider each of my guests to be incredible individuals, working with people in new ways or with key messages to share.
People from healthcare, social care, the voluntary sector, community groups more.
So join me each week as I delve deeper to find out, so, who cares anyway? Hello, I'd like to welcome you to the first podcast of So Who Cares Anyway? And in this first podcast I'd like to introduce you to our guest, Dr.
Debbie Reid, who is a reader at the Faculty of Science and Medicine at King's College London.
Today's episode is From Silence to Voice.
And the reason for that is because I first met Debbie back in 2019 when I was undertaking my D'Arcy program.
I felt quite honoured when I went to see Debbie because she really opened my eyes to different ways of thinking and was quite inspirational to me.
And from that meeting, Debbie introduced me to the idea and the concept of how important it is to be able to tell people what it is that you do and the difference that you make and directed me to the book Silence to Voice.
So I'd like to hand over now to Debbie and ask you to introduce yourself.
Thank you.
Thanks, Ruth.
It's a real privilege to be invited to do this, and particularly being the first person that your first podcast.
So, thank you so much for that.
And I've got to say that I didn't hesitate in agreeing to do this because it's such a worthwhile thing that you're, you're attempting to achieve here.
So, yeah, I'm really pleased.
So as you quite rightly pointed out I am a Reader in Faculty Development in the Faculty of Life Science and Medicine at King's College London.
London, and I joined there in 2024, in, in spring 24.
So I've been there almost a year.
And I joined there having left the University of Kent where I'd been working for the previous 17 years, which is when, you and I met when I was the, the head of the center for professional practice that then evolved into digital and lifelong learning and then into global and lifelong learning over the, the intervening few years.
Wow.
thank you, Ruth.
Thank you.
Thank you for coming on today.
So I wonder if you'd just tell me a little bit more about your background, first of all, Debbie.
So what brought you into the world of health and social care? How did that start and, and what was your, your drivers, if you like, for doing that? Yeah, so, that's really interesting to be given the opportunity to reflect on that Ruth.
And I suppose really, all of this stems from going way, way back, into about 1984 when I joined, joined the Royal Navy.
I didn't join in any health capacity, but I was given the opportunity to, Whilst I was out on exchange in Australia to go and do something different.
And that thing that was different at that point was to go and be trained to work as part of what we now call the dental care community, dental care professional community as a dental nurse.
So that seems, it seems a lifetime ago Ruth.
So it was all thanks to the, the Royal Navy that I started in any way, shape or form in, an occupation that was related to, to healthcare.
And I know that when we've spoken before, and you've told me about this, Debbie, you talked about the fact of how it was the, you didn't actually use this word so much, but it was the culture there that you try to develop other people.
And that sort of was really instilled to you.
So I know that you entered.
When you, when you took up that role in 1984, that you said that you didn't have so many qualifications, but actually there were people there to nurture you.
So I wonder if you want to talk a little bit more about that for me and about that culture, that was instilled into you, that you took with you.
Yeah,, so as you quite rightly said when I joined the Navy, I didn't have enough what were O levels at the time, and I had to gain more O levels through studying in the evenings.
And of course, the Navy paid for me to do all of this, so I was, wow.
know, very well looked after, which is, you know, it doesn't seem like a huge amount of money, but it did make a difference.
So I was happy to give my own time to go and do that.
I went to the local college, or we had a great education center.
So I developed myself and that was all part of that culture within the Navy.
That, you know, it didn't matter whether you were wanting to be a top sports person or going to do something else, or, maybe I don't know get into doing things like archery or whatever it was, or whether for me, it was education and I wanted to Increase my ability to give myself some options to be able to progress through a very well established promotional structure and part of that promotional structure was that as you moved into a position of leadership or a position of management.
You were reported on annually, and those reports weren't just about what your performance was.
The criteria to demonstrate that you were a great leader or you're a great manager were really, centered on how much support and encouragement you gave to other people that were within your team to equally Progress and move forward.
So that culture was embedded across the Navy and people embrace that to a larger or lesser extent, depending on who they are, and what their orientation was in terms of, their own goals.
But within my area I'd had the same sort of investment given to me by a group of fantastic people.
And, of course these people moved on and, other people came in and, influenced me going forward and,.
in the same way that that was helpful to me.
It was a natural thing, really, to do that to support other people that were working as part of the team with less experience.
That sounds incredible.
And I, you know, the more that we can sort of replicate that, I think it's a huge thing, isn't it? Creating that, that thing of not just lifelong learning, but wanting to bring other people with you wherever it is that they want to go.
And obviously for you, it was, was around education, but particularly around that healthcare education moved into.
Yeah.
And I, what I would say is, it all had to be applied to your subject area, the area that you were working in.
So it was less about doing things that were potentially, you know, random and more, more about doing things that were what we now call continuous professional development and, focused on, your professional growth.
So, across the, different areas within the Navy, I mean, we now went on later to work with the Army, the Navy and the Royal Air Force in a tri service environment,, and actually what I observed was all of them having a similar, type of orientation in terms of culture towards this professional growth and making sure that we were thinking about not only how we develop, as an individual, but also how we,, develop in terms of leadership and management.
So, that was trying to combine being great within your professional area, alongside this, you know, intention, to polish and hone and refine and enhance your leadership and management skills.
So, that was really useful.
Yeah, and I think a really important thing of creating that environment, so you've moved on obviously now and you spoke a little bit about that earlier on, so I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about what it is that you do now, why went to that area well, Took you that way? yeah,, so.
I spent 23 years working with the Royal Navy.
And when I joined the Navy in 1984, I joined and I got an O level in English literature, cause I really liked reading, which was rather fortunate really.
And by the time that I'd ended, I left I'd studied, I got various qualifications in program design, development, delivery, quality assurance.
But also in teaching and education.
And I'd been able.
to work, do some part time work with Portsmouth University with one of the people that was a great inspiration to me, Professor Sarah Holmes.
And, as a consequence,, I've been able to, build a CV that demonstrate not only what I could do within the auspices of the armed forces, but also outside as well.
So when I came towards the end of the period of time where I've been able to establish myself in the Navy and, the opportunities as you get higher become a little bit more limited, in terms of application.
And one of the people that I had worked for Previously, who'd left the Navy Professor Stephen Lambert Humble said to me, Debbie, when you're ready to go, let me know because, I work outside the Navy and the armed forces now, and I know that there are, jobs there that you would be really great at.
And because I'd built my academic abilities, and that was the area that I wanted to, move into I let Stephen know, and he knew of a job that was being advertised on at the University of Kent, and it was a job that Needed people to design and develop and deliver a degree for dental care professionals, a part time degree for dental care professionals.
So I had to apply with everyone else and I was interviewed and from a cast of thousands, I was selected to, do the job.
And I moved down into that role in 2007.
So I left the Navy and, went to work at the University of Kent then and I've got to say the University of Kent were fabulous, As I spent the next 17 years working there, and in all sorts of different roles they, they were really innovative and gave me the opportunity to start to develop academic programs that were suitable, not just for those that worked within dentistry, but those that worked across the health, you know, across the entire population of healthcare, and also beyond that.
So I was also designing, developing, delivery delivering postgraduate qualifications and provision for teachers,, as well working with a whole raft of other groups.
I started off as a lecturer and then I was working in a department called the Centre for Work and Learning which became a centre for professional practice.
And I worked for somebody called Kathy Hull, who was again, one of those people, every so often you meet people that make a big difference to what you do.
And Kathy Hull was, was that person.
So Kathy Hull was very work based, orientated, very adult education, and brought all of that type of understanding into, the university.
And, I went on to do all sorts of roles And then when Cathy was retiring the dean at the time for health Professor Peter Jeffries said to me, Debbie, I think you would be ideal to do Cathy's job.
And so I applied for the head of.
department role and it was interviewed again and given a contract, for that job.
And, I spent largely the next seven years as the head of the center for professional practice really right up until 2019.
When as you might remember, we were, we were a hair's breadth away from lockdown.
And the university basically was thinking about, how it moves forward into 2020 and beyond.
It was a period of restructuring, and I was asked to to lead what would be called Digital and Lifelong Learning, and that was about drawing together different departments across the university, including the Centre for for degree apprenticeships and other groups, to form what was Digital and Lifelong Learning as a stepping stone to where they wanted to progress to which is Global and lifelong learning, as it is today at the university, so I spent a couple of years doing that.
I also went to work for Professor Stephen Peckham as part of NIHR, ARC KSS for a period of time.
And then there was an opportunity to apply for a role, which was much, much broader.
for that.
Which was the King's role that I, that I secured this time last year, really.
And then started in May, but going back to, Kent, just thinking about going back there and, and what I did from the time I got into the position of head of professional practice.
I was able to work with a whole range of other health care occupational groups, health care providers.
And that's when we developed the MSC and advanced in specialist health care that had got all that had a central core.
And then these other hubs.
Spokes that went off that's that were focused on developing understanding around individual professional areas, and, I just happened to be a person that was able to bring that together and able to make that work.
And we had initially, we had all sorts of different Hub groups, we had palliative care, we had minimally invasive surgery, we had surgical practice, we had dental advancing dental practice, you know, there was a whole raft of different groups and also what we were doing was very interesting to what was HEE in Kent, Surrey and Sussex, and also in Thames Valley, and we had different Elements of provision that were then being delivered at a distance through collaborative provision and then coming back into us to go forward to move forward and to go on to the next stages to gain for people to gain their MSC.
So we had doctors, we had working in GP practices you know, working with people like Abdul Tarifi.
Hilary Dyack and Chris Warwick.
So there was a whole raft of people in GP practice that I was also working with.
We were working with Kent Community Health Care Trust.
We were working with the hospitals.
We were, you know, we were doing all sorts of different things.
Things that were credit bearing and non credit bearing.
All of them were about bringing people in to enable them to progress in a very multidisciplinary, bordering, transdisciplinary, really way to gain academic qualifications that had got a practical application that allowed them to move forward in their professional roles.
And that was really important to me to be able to contribute in that way, because it made absolute sense from the conversations I was having with colleagues that this was, this was something that was useful and added strategic importance because Kent at that time.
We're struggling to compete to recruit people down into some of these positions in these in terms of the health care providers.
And one of the things that had the potential to tempt people down there was by saying not only are we a great employer and it's a great place to live, but also you get the opportunity to do this as well if you want to.
And that.
Just that little bit of something that makes a difference whether people might come to Kent or elsewhere and we use that principle, not only for health care, but also in the other piece of work that was doing with the non health professionals in teaching.
So I was working with with some of the academies trusts to do that, to make this offer for.
their teachers to make the positions for teachers really attractive to make sure Kent was drawing down,, the best and the most motivated.
so that, I suppose, summarizes, where my experience has been gained.
And it also tells us a bit about what you were doing and why you were doing it.
And it was about continuing that lifelong learning, that continued professional development.
And what you touched on a bit there, which I just want to ask you a little bit more about in a moment, was about the facts of This was going to make a difference.
So the staff you were going to recruit and retain those staff, but also they were actually going to go and have an impact in their workplace because you talked about that practical application, which will probably lead us into that silence to voice part.
But before we go to that, I just wonder if you can tell me a little bit more maybe around how Those people coming on to those various programs that you provided and delivered and I know I came down and met a few of them and they were completely multi professional, you know, with people from all different areas and it was great to see them all in a room together.
But, what did that do? So what did that actually mean to the people in the community? So you're talking about Kent and Medway.
So what did that do for the people in the community that live in Kent and Medway? What difference and impact did that have? Yeah, so, I suppose, again, My, area of my research area and my, I suppose, driving interest is around the professionalization of occupation.
So all of those things that, that I am interested in, from a theoretical and research perspective is all about how occupations move from an occupation into a profession and some of the principles and practices that need to happen in order for people to move forward and so as well as doing my day to day job I'd also always studied and in a way that I understood what was required for the next level or the level beyond that.
And how do we set up how do I personally set up a strategy to move, into those areas.
And often that was as a consequence of continuous professional education.
And those around me that I saw being successful, that's exactly what.
They did now.
Not every occupation had the same level of opportunity to gain those academic qualifications, because remembering when you study for an MSC, for example, you also learn the skills about how to be critical.
And criticality in terms of evidence and also how to think about methodologies underpinning good research and the methods that you, good methods, sound methods to carry out that research.
Now, if you don't have those MSC or postgraduate opportunities available to you as a group of an occupation, then that occupation often.
Is is noticeable that there is very little research done about what they do to demonstrate how effective it is or are not effective.
It is because those that would carry out that research are usually.
The occupation themselves, because they're curious about their own activity.
So if you don't have an MSC offer or an offer that provides those, those opportunities, then.
There is very little sometimes to demonstrate the effectiveness of the occupation.
Now that can be used in one of two ways, of course, can't it? It can be used by those that decry the, occupation or want to, suppress it.
To say, well, there's no evidence to suggest that they're any good.
Well, there's no evidence to suggest that they're not because there's no evidence.
So,.
What I noticed within my own area within dentistry, that there was this gap of this skills development gap, and that was having a potentially having an a restricting impact on my colleagues that work within the dental care professions to the extent that The dental care profession, so we're talking about dental hygienists, dental therapists, clinical dental technicians, technicians, dental technicians, orthodontic therapists and dental nurses.
People are aware of them, but they don't really understand what they do because there's not huge amounts out there.
Because actually, when you look at what's available in terms of postgraduate education and then Those occupations, developing those skills so they can promote what they do and, look at that in, data and evidence terms.
There's very little of it.
And they're not the only ones within Groups.
So it became important to me to make sure that other people had the opportunities that I didn't.
'cause let's face it, if I could do it, they could do it.
You just need the opportunity, don't you? Yeah.
And you just need something that's going to be useful to you.
So I was in a position to be able to develop that and I'd got external reassurance that was required.
So I did it for, the dental occupations.
And that was all of them, including my colleagues that were dentists.
I also was doing that offering, doing some of that offer for colleagues that were GPs through the work I was doing with.
Health Education England, KSS,, and then for other areas.
And it was the same at the time when we were doing it for our colleagues that weren't outside health, that were, were teachers, there were very little there was very little opportunity to explore practice.
There was some leadership qualifications, but exploring practice in a way that you're interested in, there was little of that.
So that's Became evident.
And so therefore you do something about that.
Or that's my attitude.
Well, let's make a change there.
Let's, let's do something about that and give everybody those opportunities.
You know, it comes back to people saying, I remember having a conversation once with somebody I knew.
When I was in working down at Aldershot and they said Oh, I could have done a an MSC.
I was telling him about what I was doing when I thought, yeah, you can.
And then there's a difference between those that talk a good MSC and could do it.
And those actually go and do something about it.
And I think that that's the thing, isn't it? It's a.
Those that if you determined you will go and, you'll find a way to make a difference, or that's my own thinking in order to to make these opportunities happen and make them available to others.
And we thought about the community as well.
We realize that people were working.
We realize that they got.
competing priorities, kid, cat, car, dog, life going on, work, as well as wanting to study and move forward.
And so how could we create a program that was delivered in an accessible way and that was still viable and, still of interest and, that's the program that we designed and developed way back in sort of, it was about 2010, 2011, and it's still running down at Kent today.
Which is that, yeah, of course it is.
Yeah, of course it is.
Yeah, And it stems from the fact that you wanted to make a difference because of course.
Yeah.
that Your dental, colleagues, all of those various professions, they hadn't got that voice.
People didn't quite realize who they are.
They, they trusted them when they went to see them, but they didn't realize who they are.
They didn't realize what they were doing.
And even within themselves, what that meant was, if I'm saying this correctly, Debbie, is that they were then not perhaps questioning what they were doing because they weren't given a space somewhere to go and say now what are we doing what do we do next how we how do we develop our profession so that we really know that what we are doing is having an impact.
on people.
And what Yeah, develop that those pathways for people so that they're accessible, that they can access them, that they feel like they're getting that continuous development, which so many people want, but also that are relevant because they're relevant to them in their workplace and the people that they're caring for.
And that's what I'm hearing you saying.
Would I be right in that? you're absolutely hit.
Yeah, hit the nail on the head.
I mentioned Cathy all earlier on.
So Cathy Hall was the person she wasn't from a health background, although her husband had been involved at the executive level in the local hospital, but she.
Just by, by nature, she'd got that orientation and she understood the professionalization, the whole professional, the concept of professionalization.
So that's not being professional, that's something different.
It's that process of how people, our occupations go from occupations to profession.
And she was the person that really made me think differently about my.
Not particularly as an individual, but my occupation and question, some of the things that we've taken for granted and then start to see some of the gaps and, that book Silence to Voice that you mentioned by Biresh and Gordon was one of the texts that she suggested that I.
Read and looked and I thought, my goodness, the journey for nurses to go from an occupation to a profession.
And this isn't a journey that ends so often.
They don't call it necessarily the professionalization journey.
They call it the professionalization project because it goes, it's going on and evolving all the time.
And those projects are the same, no matter what occupation you are going forward.
If you want to move your Occupation and elevate it and make sure that you're moving and providing the best service that you can possibly provide.
Understanding the politics around particular sectors and how people will defend their own territory, their professional territory against other people.
So the principles of professionalization were, really appealing and interesting to me and so those applied elsewhere and that is some of the work that I'm doing whilst I'm at King's now.
So I'm talking to my colleagues.
That work as technicians about how they think about how they move to, start to elevate their role and to professionalize.
That doesn't mean that they're not being professional already because they are, but that old issue about professionalization and, the various tensions that going on and I'm doing some work with them alongside my, if you like my other day to day role, which is working with those that teach are students to be doctors.
So on the MBBS, so I work with with that group and also working.
And with my colleagues that do a similar type of job, but for the bioscience as well and it's a real joy.
It's a real pleasure because it's allowing me to have an apply my skills.
My understanding, my background, my, my research area in a, in a very much more broad way.
And of course, the broader that you, you go, the more impact that you can have in a,, an area.
I still do all my stuff within dentistry as well.
So I'm a fellow of the college of general dentistry.
I work.
For them in terms of being a chair in one of their faculty boards I was working as the honorary VP for the British Dental Hygiene and Therapy Society, I do stuff for the British Dental, so I'm still doing all of those things, I'm part of the leadership network for the General Dental Council But that largely is outside my day work.
That's my, that's my free time work because I realize that we do need to give of ourselves if we are committed to moving our profession forward and that doesn't necessarily come with a remuneration attached to it.
It's you know, being the greater good.
One of the people the theorists that, What was fundamental to my doctoral thesis was a guy called Basil Bernstein and he was very interested in the way that education affects equality and, so on.
So I drew heavily on his, on his principles for my, thesis, about the pedagogicized career.
So how.
No matter where you are, this was in dentistry, how, learning and the different types of learning are really important.
And I think that principle is evident in, the majority of professions.
So this attitude of continuously questioning and being curious and thinking about the next thing and over the horizon and preparing yourself for, some of those things.
those are the things that you need to embrace.
And that's the work that I do is actually raising those issues to make people think about them.
'cause you don't know what you don't know do you? So even thinking about silence to voice and what professional voice means, you know, it's professional voice is not necessarily about me speaking, but it's about professional presence and.
Building up that sense of identity to an extent where it becomes recognized by other people within the sector, but also then beyond that.
So by people that general society.
So all of those things are things that I've come to understand through my own study and research.
And now it's a case of well, as any good academic does, wants to disseminate that and to, have an effect.
And the best way to do it is by making, giving it a practical application in order that it is, it is useful to others.
So a lot of the people that came to do our MSc down at Kent and going forward.
to do, you know, incredible things within the whole sector.
You know, we've got people that have gone on to be presidents of their their professional societies that they've gone on to.
Be academics, be deans, for the NHS, one of them was a president of one of the, faculties in the Royal College.
So, they have gone on to do huge amounts.
We've got people that are.
Working at national level those people have been enabled in some way by studying through the MSC in order, they've been able to position themselves in the pipeline.
So, when those opportunities have come up, they've been able to take those opportunities and then move forward in terms of what they're able to do.
Influence and,, so such a thrill to think that you've even had a, a tiny little fraction of that you know, of influence in those, those areas.
So,, that's something that's been, really interesting that it matters to me, I suppose what we do is.
enabling to those around me and to those beyond that point.
So on my own, I can only achieve a tiny thing by influencing others.
We can actually go out there and influence far, far more, individuals.
So listening to you there, for those people who are, listening to this today, I just want to go back a little bit to that silence to voice piece so that they might understand it a little bit more.
So if I give my understanding and some of the bits that I got from that, and, and you've spoken about how it's professionalization of A group of people.
So for me, obviously, as a nurse, I thought very much about nursing.
But as you say, it applies to so many different people.
It was about the fact of people might trust what you do, but they don't always know what you do.
And if we don't tell people.
what we do, the impact of that, as well as the knowledge and the skills and the expertise that we might have built up over the years through various programs, including things such as your MSc, then people don't understand why it is that we need to do those.
And what it goes on to talk about in that is about that, how you gain that professional As you say, not for being professional yourself, but professional recognition as a group in order to get the resource and the recognition and the reward as well as the respect that you need.
And I think quite often what happens is things are.
underplayed.
I think with nursing particularly very much people think, Oh, she's a nurse and she cares, but people don't always understand everything that's behind that.
So I'm obviously speaking with that particular lens, but I think from what you're saying, it happens elsewhere.
And I think there's something about the importance of it is that we need to raise that part up in raise that profile professionally in order to gain those things.
So I wonder if you'd talk a little bit about that, please.
Well, you said we'd met in 2019.
And when I look back, when you invited me to do the podcast, I look back to see when I was first writing about the professional voice.
And that was in 2009.
So 10 years before I published my first article about silence to voice was being published then.
And that was a year after all dental professionals had to.
become statutorily registered.
And so I was really writing to those dental care professionals about,, look, you're statutorily registered now.
So what does that mean in order for you to be able to move your individual occupations forward? So you might be called dental care professionals, but what does the professional mean in terms of not just you and your day to day behavior, but as a group,, as an occupational group.
So, that was 2009.
And one of the things was,, this was all sort of interwoven with professional agency, your ability,, individual's ability to have the confidence to carry out their role to developing this professional voice.
So in terms of professional societies That was getting a seat at the table to talk about, their particular area and the value of what they did, in respect to where in the past, it'd been large, the large monolith organizations that had been the only people.
Sort of presence at the table.
And so the other occupations weren't really being considered about what they bought and the impact that they were Potential that they had and now they might bring that forward and those notions of professional audibility were really important and that feeds into what I've often spoken to you about Ruth is about that initial recognition and that recognition, as I mentioned earlier, it's not just recognition on an individual person or I recognize Mary Jane or whatever it is down the road, but the occupations recognized, recognized within the sector, and beyond the sector as well for what they do so recognize recognition is about understanding and valuing, and that goes into that recognition, respect, so recognition, and then are respected for what they do respected for their contribution.
Within their local area, but also beyond.
So for nursing, it would be not just for what they do within an understood within nursing, but within the whole of the health care arena and then outside of that.
So the public understand and the the public respect and understand what they do.,
These occupations become the custodian, the trusted custodian of a body of knowledge and a body of practice that the public respect them for, and the public also have trust in them for, and trust that when they carry out this particular thing, or this particular area of practice, that that's going to be done, at the highest level.
And as soon as they've got that.
recognition, that respect for doing that, then that's where the reward comes.
As a profession, it's elevated in public thinking, it's elevated in terms of status and within the occupation, within the sector,.
within the public, you know, the more public sphere.
And of course with that, that reward comes just more than that.
And that's one of the things that was mentioned in silence to voice.
It's okay being said, Josh, you're doing a great job, but sometimes that also needs to be reflected in pay scales, in opportunities and, a whole raft of different areas.
It's no good just getting a pat on the head.
It needs to be linked into some of these other, these extrinsic reward mechanisms and sometimes that means more opportunities to do enhancement, all of that, woven together and it's not necessarily down to an organization to do it.
It's down to the occupational group to come together, to think about that and to strategize and to move that forward.
But unless you.
Are familiar with this old process of professionalization.
Why would you even know about that? And so part of what I did was recognized what I didn't know, and then also recognize that the other people didn't know it and thought, okay, well, let's share that.
Let's share that.
And support people to think differently.
And with that, their profession to have aspiration to, move forward.
And that was, you know, that was all from that work with Kathy Hall, With, the study that I did, the research that I did, my academic my own academic skills to explore that and to become critical because not everything makes sense and not everything, you know, it might be done some years before.
And is that really relevant now or have we moved on? so I felt it was incumbent on me to invest some of my time to benefit other people and not just confine that, to my own roots, but, to other occupational groups as well.
So that's, recognition.
That respect and that reward is the group, of areas that I always refer back to and think about and encourage other people to as well.
And of course, if that happens, I think it shows that then more likely to get that, numbers that you need and the right people, you know, always talk about the right people in the right place, but actually, if you don't understand what people do, if they haven't got that respect and that recognition and All of those bits that you've spoken about, then actually how do we make sure that we have the right staff in levels on wards, how do we make sure we have the right people working in dentistry roles or other roles and that we have enough of them to do what they need to do, but also to have that critical thinking to think about actually use what I'm doing.
the right thing? Is this the way that we need to do it? Is there another way? Is there a better way? And all of those things you spoke about that professionalism as being almost a journey, but actually of course it is because once you become critical, then you start to think and you think about what you're doing.
So, the profession presumably will evolve as well and be a continuous evolution to meet the needs of the people that we are there to serve.
Yeah, I think you're right, Ruth, but just to pick up on one thing, you mentioned then professionalism.
So this is about professionalization It is important professionalism means something else.
Professionalization is a whole area of study that dates right, right back.
And,, Actually, some of, the core principles of professionalization, which, you know, I've written about and are well written about by others, my colleagues that are dentists.
If you look at their professionalization journey and the project that's gone on, they typify.
You can see, you know, you need these six areas and you can see as they move forward over the past 100 years, how that they've ticked those off.
So they,, within the sphere of healthcare, they've gone from being, if you like, doctors with a, an interest in teeth to a whole profession on their own.
And,, it's very independent, and the way, that route, that journey is underpinned by a number of principles That a lot of sociological researchers have written about and that I was able to draw on and those sociological principles are gathered by research that's been done by observations, not only within my area, but in other areas as well, but equally what I noticed is that, I've been working within my occupation for a long time and I didn't know.
Thanks.
About this.
And then I noticed that other people didn't know about it.
And that was the difference is starting that discourse and raising, raising awareness to it and having those conversations.
So other people have choice, don't they? And whether they're going to move forward or recognize why something's not working.
I think, ah, I see why this is happening.
And, there's a whole body of knowledge around that.
that's so interesting, Debbie, and I will, language matters.
I've got a few things that always matter to me, but professionalism and fresh being professional.
I will take that with me.
And I think that's a really important point.
So I just want to thank you.
Now for coming on my podcast, it's so obvious that you've been driven by the fact that you want to develop others, but that you want to develop others so that they can be there to do the right thing for the people that we care for and that we serve.
So I just want to say thank you for joining me and I hope that you might either come on a future podcast or, perhaps pass the baton to somebody else or, maybe both so that This can continue and we can continue to think about so who cares anyway.
Thank you.
Thanks, Ruth.
And thanks again.
As I said earlier, it's a privilege to have been invited and to share my work.
I mean, it's all right having it there available on ResearchGate and different things, but it's through these conversations that, people having the foresight in the way that you have that we can start to, bring the area of professionalization and from silence to voice and those concepts to a whole new audience and get people thinking in a different way.
So thank you so much and the very, very best of luck with your, endeavor.
It's so worthwhile.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Debbie.
Bye bye.
Take care.
Bye.