What happens when the world changes faster than the health professions? A guest lecture by Dr Emma Swärdh, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm
A lecture about professional identity, curiosity, courage, and the challenges of adapting when the world changes faster than the health professions themselves.
Health professions are often described as evidence-based. Yet history suggests that professions do not always struggle because evidence is lacking. More often, they struggle when emerging knowledge challenges established assumptions about what counts as relevant, legitimate, or professional. Time and again, transformative ideas have emerged at the boundaries between disciplines, drawing attention to realities that traditional frameworks overlooked or considered beyond their scope. Today, a growing body of evidence highlights how technological, social, environmental, commercial, and political forces shape health and healthcare. Yet integrating such knowledge into professional education, practice, and identity remains challenging. How do health professions decide what counts as relevant knowledge? Why do some forms of evidence reshape professions while others remain at the margins? And how can universities prepare students not only for the professions that have existed so far, but for the realities they will encounter in the world today and in the future?
Dr Emma Swärdh is an Assistant Senior Lecturer and a member of the Council for Sustainable Development at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.