Too hot to handle: reflections on professional boundaries in practice

Abstract

Professional boundaries between practitioners and clients are essential to the delivery of ethical and professional health services yet often prove difficult to address. A research agenda was initiated comprising a literature review, needs assessment, the development, implementation and evaluation of a Professional Boundaries for Health Practitioner (PBHP) training course. This agenda led the authors to critically reflect on the barriers of rumours, dismissiveness and time that were identified to the provision of training in this field. From these reflections, an interprofessional training framework was developed. This paper focuses on the importance of two facets of reflective practice in this process. These were (1) the importance of the integration of reflection and critical thinking skills in practitioner training; (2) critical reflection undertaken by the authors in identifying barriers to practitioner participation in work based training and determining the scope and nature of training that enhances ethical practices and meets practitioner needs.

Keywords:

• ethics
• professional‐patient relationships
• professional education