Continuing professional education and the everyday realities of practice

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the relationship between continuing professional education (CPE) and organisational change. It utilises data from two studies of nurses returning to practice after completing advanced bioscience courses to examine some of the barriers to change that they encountered, and their perceptions of how their enhanced skills might affect their roles. In line with the wider aims of this book, the chapter reinforces the argument that roles and role change need to be understood within the context of the wider ecology of the organisation, including the existing division of labour, work cultures and patterns of authority relations.