PEPonline
Professionalization
of Exercise Physiologyonline

An international electronic
journal for exercise physiologists
ISSN 1099-5862

Vol 4 No 2 February 2001

 

Taking Responsibility for Professionalism
Tommy Boone, PhD, MPH, FASEP, EPC
Professor and Chair 
Department of Exercise Physiolgoy
College of St. Scholastica
Duluth, MN 55811


THE DEVELOPMENT of exercise physiology within the context of its own professional organization is an ethical activity.  This is the premise of this article.  The search for professionalism, within ASEP, begins with ethics.  In fact, the ethics of the ASEP organization and the moral responsibility of academic exercise physiologists are inseparable.  Our concerns with teaching, staying on track, making sure the content is relevant, progressive, and understandable in our lectures are known to all professors.  But, our emphasis on the students as customers is lacking and is in need of repair.  No longer can professors be considered the “pillar of the exercise physiology community” if they aren’t willing to help support the 21st century view of the emerging profession.  Our universities, our undergraduate students, and even our graduate students need mentoring and a fresh view of possibilities, particularly the opportunities in career options in the public sector.

Much of the blame for this unflattering view lies with the professors who teach at the doctorate level.  Their teaching and the inertia of their graduate programs are simply dated and without a vision.  Students are often taught in a “dog eat dog” environment obsessed with research, publishing, and tenure.  After leaving the company of their professors, they have little incentive or direction for creating a program of study different from what they had experienced.  And, unfortunately, when the freshmen PhDs themselves adopt the “dog eat dog” perception of academics, the result is simply more of the same.  Students are excited about exercise physiology but without direction, planning, and discussion of ethical and professional issues, they often end up confused and maybe even down right mad.

While it seems obvious that a college degree is about career development, the professors do little to socialize the idea or to incorporate business thinking, critical thinking, or ethical thinking into the educational experiences.  They are excellent at designing research studies and applying statistics.  They have very little idea about how to think outside of their 40 years of the PhD life.  And, yet my experience is that the more professors pay attention to the needs and concerns of their students, the more successful the department and the profession.  The most successful academic programs are those that plan for life after graduation.  This is not (or should not be) surprising.  Preparing for a specific job in the public sector that encourages respect and financial stability has always been a function of a college education.  Does anyone really need to be told this? The short answer is YES. 

When professors are friendly, courteous, kind, and generally respectful of their students, it isn’t enough.  They are paid to be professional, to organize their lectures, to be on time to teach, and so forth.  They are also paid to look ahead and to show, if not, to create job opportunities by linking the academics with the expectation of job-related outcomes and career advancement.  This is integrity or is it?  Several PhD faculty members have suggested the following line of thinking in response to the premise of this article. 

“You say that professors place too much emphasis on their own issues and not on the students’ needs.  Well, you are confused.  You don’t understand the jungle out there.  If I don’t do research and publish, I may not get tenure, and if I don’t get tenure I don’t have a job.  Listen, I’m here because of the hard hours of work I did to get this job.  I don’t plan on losing it trying to help students get a job at graduation.  You’ve got to be realistic in this business.  My job is teach my courses, and I do an excellent job of that.  The students’ job is to pass the courses and to locate a job.  I’m not going to hold myself accountable if the students can’t get a job at graduation.  They can always go to graduate school or consider a different field of work.”
However difficult it may be to accept, the professor’s statement is common thinking among the academics.  There is no planned way to think differently.  They don’t understand that doing business as usual isn’t logical anymore.  They don’t seem to understand that for every glaring case of known lack of interaction and caring for students simply continues the likelihood of a career that is going nowhere.  Again, what makes it so bad is that the professors unthinkingly act as usual because they aren’t clear about professionalism and foolishly “think research” is their sole path to professionalism.   While research is obviously part of academics, successful professors stay close to and committed to their students.  Research may be an academic scorecard, a measure of status and accomplishment, but it is not the ultimate end.

A department’s responsibilities include how everything is conducted.  It must be a thoughtful department that rises above the bottom line (such as research publications) to consider the impact of its action on all, from faculty to the university at large.  Its purpose and activities must make professional sense.  If it doesn’t, the image hurts everyone involved with the business of exercise physiology.  Distrust in the department and faculty can drive it to closure.  Those who have worked in departments who have been shut down understand this point all to well.  This concern should be a cause for almost everyone who has invested in getting a job, getting a promotion, and yet understand all too well the dog-eat-dog existence, attention, and/or criticism of academics. 

Many PhD exercise physiologists who do not talk about ethics and professionalism believe that they are ethical and professional nonetheless.  It is this self-delusion that has helped so significantly to create the divorce between the old exercise physiology and the emerging new exercise physiology; a divorce that leaves the old exercise physiology community defenseless when arguing that sports medicine is the way.  Yet, anyone who supports ASEP knows all too well the rhetoric of sports medicine. Those of the old exercise physiology prefer to stick with what they know and sidestep the hope of ASEP.  Not incidentally, ASEP is nothing less than the full awareness of what exercise physiology ought to be and its future in the public sector.  Thinking about ASEP and the new exercise physiology are no more than acknowledging that exercise physiologists have taken professionalism into account and are willing to be responsible for the emerging profession.  It is being aware of the need for credentials specific to exercise physiology, including but not limited to, certification, licensure, and accreditation. 

The contributions ASEP members make to society, through its electronic journals and Standards of Professional Practice, allow for new thinking about exercise physiology careers in the public sector through increased opportunities in wellness, fitness, rehabilitation, and athletics.  There is no question that exercise physiologists engage in a practice, and that they are professionals.  There is nothing more obvious than the truth that exists in the commitment of exercise physiologists who are working on behalf of ASEP.  They are the best defense, and it is clearly in their interest to inform non-exercise physiology fitness practitioners that unless they are certified by ASEP they aren’t exercise physiologists.  The success and strength of ASEP and its independence from externally imposed regulations depends on the internal policing of work-related behavior.  Physicians understand this point.  Lawyers understand, and high school teachers are learning about the importance of professionalism. 

Professionalism is a way of thinking, and it is on the right track to doing the right thing.  It is thinking in terms of agreement with rules of a professional organization, thinking in terms of a commitment and contribution to exercise physiologists, and thinking in terms of helping the public sector understand and accept exercise physiologists in all aspects of healthcare issues.  Exercise physiology professionalism is about respecting the credentialing system in the United States.  It is about accepting a standard of practice to avoid harm of any kind to others.  It is about thinking as a professional even the basics of how to dress, respecting others, paying one’s debts, and obeying the law.  In other words, professionalism is about thriving and serving the public’s well being, and a sense of compliance to moral rules that allow a place in history. 

Exercise physiologists can’t overlook what it means to embrace professionalism.  It is the answer to the natural and seemingly inescapable question, “What do we do?”   People are identified by what they do through the work they do.  For example, if the answer is:  “I’m the director of cardiac rehabilitation at St. Mary’s Hospital” or “I’m a professor at Wake Forest University.”  One’s identity is associated with the identity of one’s place of work and its reputation.  “Oh, then you must be a very good exercise physiologist,” or “Well, uh, why are you at that place?”  Exercise physiologists may think they are individuals, relying on their own merits, but the fact is their reputation is defined in a large way by their place of work.  Hence, it is partly understandable why professors do what they do, and why they think as they think.  They identify themselves with the interests of the department, the college and, perhaps, a particular organization.  Each is a source of pride, and each is at the core of the answer to “what do you do”. 

Hence, nothing ensures professionalism better than a professional job in a professional setting with a commitment to a professionional culture (organizations).  Exercise physiologists need to study their way of thinking, way of talking and writing, and how they define what they do.  What they value and the way they relate to each other are important topics for research as are the more traditional topics.  Similarly, just as research is a complicated and crucial core of most exercise physiologists, most professionals understand the importance of a professional code of ethics.  Having said this, given that exercise physiologists are professionals, do they understand that an organizational code is important as a guideline to reject unethical behavior?  Do they?  If so, why didn’t they realize that for decades there was no code of ethics within exercise physiology?  Without a code of ethics to provide direction, stability, and a point of focus, it is easy to understand how an individual or a group can get caught up in not thinking right.

Being ethical is important for all professions.  Exercise physiologists are not exempt from demonstrating ethical behavior.  Therefore, it is imperative that members of the emerging profession not only acknowledge that a code exists but that it has teeth as well.  This is the only way to ensure that an organizations’ code of ethics has a purpose in setting standards.  To ensure that the purpose is understood, the code should become part of every exercise physiologist’s conversation.  It should be included in the professor’s teaching decisions, in the exercise physiologist’s responsibility in founding a state organization for exercise physiologists, and in the actual planning and/or expectation to professionalize exercise physiology.  It is no longer acceptable to act blindly to the attention that must be given to the discussion of ethics and loyalty to members of the emerging profession.

Taking responsibility for professionalism is good thinking.  It is a statement of accountability for one’s actions whereby a person says:  “It’s my job to help out.  The development of a profession is the responsibility of every member.”  Even if the professional organization doesn’t mandate support, there are moral responsibilities that are real.  Of course no one has to do anything.  People make up their own minds about everything. But if an organization is working on your behalf, doesn’t it make sense to support the organization that is trying to define your professional freedoms and your career opportunities.  There is nothing negative about the professional responsibility of an organization that concerns itself with correcting intolerable conditions of its members. 

Why a personal and professional responsibility?  The main reason is that without being responsible for the future there is no real future.  ASEP was founded to respond to problems that have everything to do with the lack of professional credentials.  The expectations of ASEP are reasonable.  The impact is positive, and it is making a contribution to society.  Exercise physiologists have the right to their own professional organization.  They are entitled to the privileges that are available to them, and are earned by their academic status.  It is about equal opportunity across the healthcare practitioners, and the idea that everyone is equal in opportunity.  Just as a person should not receive a lower salary because of gender, a person should not be kept from promotion and/or a good salary because he or she is an exercise physiologist.  In effect, when graduates of different academic programs are equally qualified in their field, they deserve the same rewards.  Equality is not equality if it applies only to a select group. 
 
 


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