Developing generic skills for future health professionals: Student and faculty perceptions of a Recovery College curriculum and courses

Abstract

Abstract As healthcare systems worldwide grapple with complex challenges such as limited resources, qualified personnel shortages, and rapid technological advancements, there is an urgent need for educational transformation in healthcare professions. This urgency arises from the necessity for healthcare professionals to evolve beyond traditional roles and acquire essential generic skills such as adaptive, epistemic, relational, ethical, and citizenship skills - areas identified as gaps in conventional university curricula. This study investigates the potential of the Recovery College model, integrated into a Canadian university's healthcare curriculum, to address these gaps. Through qualitative group interviews with eight students and three faculty members, and subsequent descriptive content analysis, we explored the perceived outcomes of this model. We discerned 15 themes within the five core categories of generic skills (Epistemic, Ethical, Relational, Adaptative, and Citizenship skills), with "experiential knowledge acquisition" central to the training input, and other significant themes including "ethical sensitivity", "collaborative communication", "self-care", and "open-mindedness to diversity". Our findings highlight the Recovery College model's potential in fostering these crucial skills among future healthcare professionals and challenging prevailing epistemic injustices in healthcare. Further investigations are needed to understand the long-term effects of this model on healthcare practice and to explore its potential integration into wider healthcare education programs.