Lower-class origin professionals in Canadian health and social service professions: "A different level of understanding".

As health and social service professions increasingly emphasize commitments to equity, advocacy and social justice, non-traditional entrants to the professions increasingly bring much-needed diversity of social backgrounds and locations. Long the domain of elite social classes, the professions are not always welcoming cultures for those from lower social class backgrounds. This paper draws on notions of material, social and cultural capital, along with habitus, to examine the experiences of professionals with lower-class backgrounds, in educational programs and in their professions. The critical interpretive qualitative study draws on interviews with 27 professionals across Canada in medicine, nursing, social work and occupational therapy. While participants were clearly set apart from their colleagues by class origins, which posed distinct struggles, they also brought valuable assets to their work: enhanced connection and rapport with clients/patients, approachability, structural analysis and advocacy, plus nuanced re-envisioning of professional ethics to minimize power dichotomies. Rather than helping lower-class entrants adapt to the professions, it may be more beneficial to alter normative professional cultures to better suit these practitioners.

Enabling university teaching for Canadian academics with multiple sclerosis through problem-focused coping.

BACKGROUND: Research shows that sustained employment contributes to a higher quality of life for those with multiple sclerosis (MS). Occupational therapists can work to create therapeutic interventions that assist people with MS with maintaining employment. PURPOSE: To detail the problem-focused coping strategies that academics with MS employ to enable them to teach in universities. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 45 Canadian academics with MS. Thematic analysis was used to generate findings. FINDINGS: While there is flexibility in research and service work tasks, teaching tasks are the most seemingly inflexible. This necessitated the development of problem-focused coping strategies to enable teaching. Three categories of strategies were employed: (1) organizational; (2) before/after teaching; and (3) during teaching. IMPLICATIONS: This brief report is intended to serve as a resource for occupational therapists and others wanting to gain a better understanding of the types of therapeutic interventions useful to those teaching in universities.