Abstract
Healthcare is largely a social teamwork activity in which individuals must work cooperatively to provide safe patient care. In preparation for this approach, educational frameworks aim to develop student competence through effective means, considering the relationships of individuals and teams, whilst enabling safe care. In this chapter, we unravel key arguments of philosophical understandings in the philosophy of social science and examine how these may begin to, or currently are, permeating the health professions field. We explore interprofessional teamwork, workplace-based assessments of competency, and distinctions between constructivism and constructionism through the lens of the individualism versus holism debate to explore the way in which our field conceptualises individuals and teams, and the ramifications of these conceptualisations on how we design, implement, assess, and research health professions education.
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Crampton, P., Buckland, J. (2022). Tensions Between Individualism and Holism: A Philosophy of Social Science Perspective. In: Brown, M.E.L., Veen, M., Finn, G.M. (eds) Applied Philosophy for Health Professions Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1512-3_14
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