THE ART AND SCIENCE OF ADULT LEARNING IN CARDIOLOGY

Abstract

Medical science continues to grow and transform very rapidly. It is the solemn duty of all health professionals towards patients and their families and junior and senior colleagues to continue to learn. It is professional obligation of all doctors to become self-directed learners from the start of their career and continue refining their knowledge. The transition from medical colleges and post graduate programs where the curriculum is well circumscribed to professional life where one has to define one's goals of learning and achieve them is like to be thrown in deep sea of wilderness and uncertainty. This critical transition has to be smooth and a strategy has to be evolved to make it mandatory and easy for all 1,2 professionals exiting postgraduate training programs. A professional has to learn to plan one's path of learning. Early in the career one has to take responsibility for one's learning. To profess to know all at the end of a fellowship is preposterous. In the journey that follows postgraduate training there are no regular class room lectures and no defined curriculum. Therefore everyone has to assume the responsibility of what, how and where to learn. One has to recognize one's professional and educational needs and 10-12 develop regular habits to promote learning. As a professional one is humbled to recognize that one understands only a miniscule par t of what is known with painful realization of half of it being wrong or out of date in ensuing few years. This underlies the importance of adopting self-directed learning-setting one's goals, mastering the art of asking questioning, persisting in reflection and pursuing research.