S11. Health professions in a turbulent era: challenges and future perspectives

Abstract

In recent years health professions, especially in the public sector, faced several transformation processes. Due to rationalization and managerialization, organizational contexts have changed (Muzio & Kirkpatrick 2011) and the wide technological development (Calvillo et al. 2015; Neri 2019) progressively changed professional practices, interprofessional relationships as well as the relationship with patients and caregivers, Moreover, the Covid-19 pandemic crisis changed the times and the rhythms of work; the progressive femininization (Adams 2005, 2010; Neri et al. 2020) and the generational turnover (Lim & Epperly 2013; Kiedik et al. 2023; Elenga & Krishnaswamy 2023) are changing expectations, values, professional identity and models of prevailing professionalism (Evetts 2011; Noordegraaf 2015, 2020). All these processes seem to have jeopardized healthcare professions which appear to be going through a profound turbulence (Azzopardi-Muscat et al. 2023), as demonstrated e.g. by the Great Resignation (Gittleman 2022; Stanton 2023), or the increasing burnout among professionals. Against this backdrop, the session welcomes theoretical and/or empirical contributions that address the challenges posed to traditional professionalism and how new forms of professionalism are enacted to counteract, resist or adapt to the evolving landscape of the healthcare sector.

Organizers

Elena Spina, Polytechnic University of the Marches, Italy, e.spina@staff.univpm.it.

Enrico Maria Piras, Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK), Italy, piras@fbk.eu.

Brief bios

Elena Spina is an Associate Professor of Economic Sociology at the Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy. Her field of interest is the sociology of professions, where she focuses on social and health professions with a particular emphasis on both generational and gender dimensions. 

Enrico Maria Piras, PhD, is a senior researcher at the Bruno Kessler Foundation and teaches at the University of Verona. His research focus is digital health and its relation to organisational and professional changes. He is associate editor at Sociology Compass for which he manages the Health and Science section.